ROCKET
Laval

2-5

MOOSE
Manitoba

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Terry – McCarron – Scherbak
Audette – Cracknell – Boucher
Veilleux – Petti – Gregoire
Broll – Eisenschmid – Baun[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Gelinas – Taormina
Parisi – Juulsen
Leblanc – Lernout[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:
McNiven
Lindgren

Scratches:

Simon Bourque, Antoine Waked, Thomas Ebbing

Injury List:

Jeremiah Addison (shoulder)

Game Report

After yet another loss on home ice, it seemed as if Sylvain Lefebvre felt it was time to shake things up a bit on his team and shuffle some line assignments around in an attempt to find some much-needed chemistry and energy.

Michael McCarron found himself back centering the top line for tonight’s game, with Adam Cracknell centering the second line with Daniel Audette and Jordan Boucher. The first period was full of energy, and the top line certainly had a lot of good looks at the net despite their shots consistently firing wide.

However it was Manitoba to light the lamp first, on a shorthanded goal by Brendan Lemieux who got a piece of the puck after Charles-David Beaudoin fired it from the point.

The teams picked up their physicality right where it left off the night before, and each side found themselves taking up residence in the penalty box more often than they would probably like.

Adam Cracknell found mesh when he redirected Matt Taormina’s blast from the blue line on one of those power play opportunities. Cracknell’s 18th goal was assisted by Taormina and Nikita Scherbak. The period ended with two players from each team in the penalty box after Buddy Robinson backhanded the puck past Michael McNiven after a whistle and a huge scrum erupted with gloves flying off in every direction.

The second period didn’t settle things down at all, either. Taormina went to the box for slashing, during which time Mason Appleton deflected a puck past McNiven to put the Moose up 2-1 on the power play.

Appleton struck again just minutes later when Nic Petan faked out Tom Parisi, deked around him and dished a centering pass over to Appleton in the slot. Shortly after that goal, another gigantic multi-player fight broke out leading to plenty of penalties on both sides. But again the Laval power play units couldn’t convert their man advantage opportunities.

To their credit, the Rocket tightened up their discipline in the third period with only Manitoba heading to the penalty box during the frame. Terry capitalized on Michael Spacek’s high-sticking penalty with one of his signature blasts from the point to make it 4-2, but just moments later Patrice Cormier potted another empty-netter to keep the Rocket at bay yet again.

Winning at home hasn’t been easy for Laval this season, and after dropping two games at Place Bell already this week, they’ll need to regroup and come back tomorrow with a lot more grit and determination if they want to get two points this weekend.

▲     Jordan Boucher, Jeremy Gregoire, Brett Lernout

▼     Stefan Leblanc, Niki Petti, Daniel Audette

1. Mason Appleton  MB
2. Michael Spacek  MB
3. Brendan Lemieux  MB

Interviews conducted by Amy Johnson for AHL Report

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