ROCKET
Laval

4-2

COMETS
Utica

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Rychel – Cracknell – Terry
Boucher – Petti – Eisenschmid
Broll – Ebbing –
Veilleux – Blain – Desjardins[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Parisi – Taormina
Gelinas – Bourque
Hamilton – Petgrave[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:
Fucale
McNiven

Scratches:

Daniel Audette (lower body), Stefan Leblanc (day to day), Antoine Waked (upper body)

Injury List:

Jeremiah Addison (shoulder)

Game Report

The Rocket needed a win. Badly. After getting shut out in Wednesday’s tilt against the Marlies, the Laval team found themselves with fresh PTO players once again and looking to get back in the win column.

In the opening period against Utica, the visitors found themselves getting outshot early on but were holding their own. They pressured the Comets, and kept them in their own end quite a bit, but couldn’t generate enough space and open ice to get any real shots on Thatcher Demko.

Then Cam Darcy finished off a smooth tic-tac-toe play in front of Zach Fucale to put the Comets on the board first. Laval looked sloppy and disorganized, with the potential for things to go downhill very quickly.

But things turned around mightily in the second frame. Kerby Rychel tied things up just 53 seconds into the period on a fresh power play opportunity, and the momentum tangibly shifted to the Rocket.

Eric Gelinas had to leave the ice quickly when his helmet got knocked off, and the Comets took advantage of the chaos to pepper Fucale with shots in close. But the Laval netminder was locked in on this night, and kept the puck out of his net.

Then, on the next man advantage for the Rocket, Niki Petti was on Demko’s doorstep after Tom Parisi fired a big shot from the point. Petti cleaned up the rebound to give his team their first lead of the night.

Another big point shot found the back of the net when Gelinas blasted the puck after taking a feed from Markus Eisenschmid and Laval found themselves up 3-1 on the shorthanded goal.

Already with two assists on the night, Chris Terry notched yet another power play goal for his team to start the third period, and the energy on the Laval bench was surging. Things began to get a bit more physical in the final frame, as Utica pressed hard to try to mount a comeback, but they only managed to get one more puck past Fucale.

The team now heads to Syracuse where they’ll try to get the same result against another tough team, in the hopes that they can string together a much-needed back-to-back win.

▲     Kerby Rychel, Zach Fucale, Chris Terry, Yannick Veilleux, Tom Parisi, Matt Taormina

▼     Luc-Olivier Blain, Eric Gelinas, Rob Hamilton

1. Chris Terry  LAV
2. Zachary Fucale  LAV
3. Cam Darcy  UTI

Post-game interview with Zachary Fucale

Post-game interview with Matt Taormina

Post-game interview with Yannick Veilleux

Interviews conducted by Amy Johnson for AHL Report

.@cdarcy19 puts the Comets up 1-0! @PattyW28 and @MichaelChaput62 pick up the assists! #LAVvsUTI pic.twitter.com/pGU8pBKktp

— Utica Comets (@UticaComets) March 16, 2018

BEAST PLAYER PROFILE | Chris Leveille, Taking the Long Way Home https://t.co/VCn82hcd0N pic.twitter.com/KJ4b84hrIh

— AHL Report (@TheAHLReport) March 16, 2018

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