Rocket Lineup

Matthew Peca – Michael McCarron – Riley Barber

Dale Weise – Ryan Poehling – Kevin Lynch

Alexandre Alain – Lukas Vejdemo – Joe Cox

Nikita Jevpalovs – Jake Evans – Antoine Waked

Karl Alzner – Josh Brook

Otto Leskinen – Noah Juulsen

Maxim Lamarche – Christian Folin

Charlie Lindgren – Cayden Primeau

Ryan Culkin, Michael Pezzetta, David Sklenicka

William Pelletier (undisclosed), Phil Varone (wrist), Xavier Ouellet (lower body), Evan McEneny (lower body), Alex Belzile (upper body)

Game Report

After coming out on the wrong side of the final score in the past few games, the Rocket needed a solid performance on the road to get some motivation under their skates. With Charlie Lindgren in net, and Gustav Olofsson recalled to Montreal, Laval paid their first visit to their division rivals, the Syracuse Crunch, on Friday night.

Lindgren played lights out all night, period. If not for the performance of the Rocket’s most seasoned, dependable, and calm netminder, this game could have easily gotten quite out of hand for the visiting team.

It also helped that Jake Evans scored the first goal of the game just 45 seconds after the opening puck drop. Playing on the road in Syracuse is never an easy task, and striking first, so quickly, definitely provided a much-needed boost right out of the gate.

However the one area that Laval performed poorly in was discipline. They spent a good portion of the night in the penalty box, leaving Lindgren and the PK units to fend off some pretty dangerous scoring attempts by the Crunch. However neither team was successful in scoring on the man advantage in this game, which was a testament to some pretty scoring penalty killing.

Danick Martel tied the game at 1-1 with just over four minutes left in the opening period. Riley Barber then restored the Laval lead in the second period, followed by a goal from Alexandre Alain, a sharp wrister from the circle, less than two minutes later to give the Rocket a cushion.

Interestingly, Spencer Martin was sent in to replace Scott Wedgewood in the Crunch goal to begin the third period. Whether that was a wake-up call for Syracuse or not can’t be measured, but Martel combined with Mitchell Stephens on a slick centering pass to pull the Crunch within a goal.

Despite the Rocket taking a couple of additional unnecessary penalties late in the game, it was Lukas Vejdemo who potted a shorthanded empty-netter with 18 seconds left to seal the victory for Laval.

The team now travels to Springfield to wrap up this road trip tomorrow night against the Thunderbirds.

Plus / Minus

▲  Charlie Lindgren, Karl Alzner, Lukas Vejdemo

▼  Michael McCarron, Kevin Lynch, Ryan Poehling