Home Featured RECAP | Rocket – Crunch: Two-Goal Lead Dissipates as Penalties Sink Laval

RECAP | Rocket – Crunch: Two-Goal Lead Dissipates as Penalties Sink Laval

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RECAP | Rocket – Crunch: Two-Goal Lead Dissipates as Penalties Sink Laval
Alexandre Grenier (Photo by Amy Johnson | © Rocket Sports Media) Mandatory Credit Required

 

FINAL | 2018-19 Season, Game 18 | Saturday November 17, 2018 
Onondaga County War Memorial Arena, Syracuse, NY

ROCKET
Laval

4-6

CRUNCH
Syracuse

Alexandre Grenier (Photo by Amy Johnson | © Rocket Sports Media) Mandatory Credit Required

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Chaput – Evans – Belzile
Audette – McCarron – Froese
Jevpalovs – Vejdemo – Grenier
Pezzetta – Verbeek – Alain[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Kulak – Sproul
Sklenicka – Lernout
Plant – Lamarche[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:
McNiven
Lindgren

Scratches:

Antoine Waked, Hunter Shinkaruk, Michal Moravcik

Injury List:

Gustav Olofsson (shoulder), Cale Fleury (day-to-day)

Game Report

Couch Joel Bouchard cited taking bad penalties as one reason his team fell to the Sound Tigers in an eventual shootout on Friday night. But that message didn’t seem to reach the team too loudly, as spending too much time in the penalty box seemed to seal their fate yet again on Saturday night when Laval headed to Syracuse to take on the Crunch.

From the first puck drop, the tension between these two teams was palpable in the arena. Scrums and scraps started within the first minute of play, and didn’t let up for most of the first period.  Laval got plenty of pucks in on Connor Ingram early on, but the Crunch seemed to spend an awful lot of time in the Rocket’s zone during the first 20 minutes of play.

Michael Chaput (Photo by Amy Johnson | © Rocket Sports Media) Mandatory Credit Required

The much-maligned Rocket power play did wake up a bit in this game, with Michael Chaput scoring the first goal of the night on the man advantage when he fed the puck cross-crease and Cameron Gaunce deflected it past his own goaltender.

Soon after, Nikita Jevpalovs sat for a holding call followed almost immediately by Brett Kulak with an elbowing penalty. The ensuing five-on-three power play for Syracuse proved to be too much for Laval’s penalty killers for the second night in a row, and the Crunch evened the score with a smooth wrister down low.

Chaput wasn’t yet finished his evening yet and buried his own rebound after Jake Evans tried to drive the net but passed it back to his linemate.

Ryan Sproul (Photo by Amy Johnson | © Rocket Sports Media) Mandatory Credit Required

In the middle frame, Laval scored their second power play goal of the night when Ryan Sproul found mesh on a nice one-timer from the right circle. With a two-goal lead in a noisy, intense building, the Rocket seemed to have momentum and confidence. And that’s when things went sideways.

The Crunch would go on to score five (yes, five) unanswered goals, three of which were while Laval was killing a penalty. Despite dominating shots 11-4 in the third period, the Rocket took three goals against in a complete breakdown of discipline and puck management.

Michael Pezzetta (Photo by Amy Johnson | © Rocket Sports Media) Mandatory Credit Required

One late-game positive came when Michael Pezzetta scored his first professional goal with less than a minute left in the game when he dished a bouncing puck past Ingram to bring Laval back within two, but they couldn’t find the back of the net again before the final horn.

The Rocket now have a few days to regroup and get some good practice in before they head to Utica on Wednesday night for what will surely be another tough divisional battle.

▲     Michael Chaput, Jake Evans, Brett Lernout

▼     Maxim Lamarche, Adam Plant, Alexandre Grenier

 Statistics 
ROCKET   CRUNCH
28 Shots 22
2 for 7 Power Play 4 for 7
14 Penalty Minutes 14
 Scoring
 FINAL 1 2 3 OT SO T
 Rocket (7-9-1-1) 2 1 1 4
 Crunch (8-5-1-0) 1 2 3 6
Scorers Goalies
  • LAV: Chaput (6), Chaput (7), Sproul (1), Pezzetta (1)
  • SYR: Raddysh (7), Verhaeghe (5), Barre-Boulet (5), Gaunce (4), Foote (1), Volkov (6)
  • LAV: McNiven (L) 1-3-0-0
  • SYR: Ingram (W) 4-3-0-0
 AHL Three Stars
ahl14_200  

  1. Cameron Gaunce  SYR
  2. Alex Barre-Boulet  SYR
  3. Carter Verhaeghe  SYR

 Video highlights

 

 Post-game interview
Post-game interview with Joel Bouchard:

Post-game interview with Lukas Vejdemo:

Post-game interview with Jake Evans:

Interviews conducted by Amy Johnson for AHL Report

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https://twitter.com/RocketLaval/status/1064003715366117376

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