Rocket Lineup

Charles Hudon – Jake Evans – Joe Cox

Matthew Peca – Phil Varone – Riley Barber

Alexandre Alain – Lukas Vejdemo – Nikita Jevpalovs

Michael Pezzetta – Laurent Dauphin – Kevin Lynch

Karl Alzner – Xavier Ouellet

Otto Leskinen – Josh Brook

Gustav Olofsson – Christian Folin

Cayden Primeau – Keith Kinkaid

Maxim Lamarche, Will Pelletier, Ralph Cuddemi, Yannick Veilleux, Antoine Waked, Dale Weise

Noah Juulsen (upper body), Alex Belzile (pectoral surgery), Andrew Sturtz, Hayden Verbeek

Game Report

Game Report written by Amy Johnson

The back and forth, up and down cycle of the Rocket’s season continued on Friday night in Rochester. After defeating Syracuse on Wednesday night, coming off of two Laval road losses, the Rocket once again came up short. The Amerks looked much more like the top-of-the-division team they’ve been for most of the year and the visitors just couldn’t get anything going.

With Syracuse and Toronto clipping their heels in the standings, Laval traveled to Binghamton on Saturday night for another North Division clash. Cayden Primeau got the start in net, and for the first time in a while Joel Bouchard mixed up his defensive pairings, with Karl Alzner bumped to the top pairing with captain Xavier Ouellet, and Otto Leskinen getting an opportunity with Josh Brook on the second pairing.

For more than the first half of the game, not much could be said about the events on the ice. There were few whistles, and no scoring until about six minutes remained in the second period.

But before that, both teams (in their first meeting of the season) seemed to play equally in either end. Not many shots were getting through to the nets and the few dangerous shots on goal were stopped by Primeau and Gilles Senn with ease.

In the opening frame, Michael Pezzetta laid a big hit on a Binghamton player and Brandon Baddock responded by dropping the gloves with the Laval forward. Soon after, the Rocket found themselves on the wrong end of a five-on-three power play but Primeau and the Laval defense denied the Devils at every turn.

Late in the second period, Laval broke the scoring stalemate when Jake Evans made a perfect pass from down low to Charles Hudon in the right circle and Hudon made no mistake as he ripped the puck past Senn. Just 36 seconds later, Laurent Dauphin picked up his own rebound on a blocked shot and fired the puck into the Binghamton net.

The Rocket carried a two-goal lead into the third period, and that’s when the Devils made their big push for a comeback. With a flurry of shots around the Laval net, you could feel the intensity ramping up for Binghamton, and they eventually got a puck through when Kyle Cumiskey forced a turnover and fired a slap shot from the slot.

That goal gave the home team some life, and Laval struggled to keep up with their energy. Josh Jacobs was credited for Binghamton’s second goal when it seemed as if Primeau’s skate knocked a loose puck backwards into his own net for the tying goal.

In overtime, both teams had a number of good chances but each goaltender stood strong in net and forced a shootout. Phil Varone managed to score in the shootout, but Jesper Boqvist and Joey Anderson both beat Primeau to complete the comeback victory.

A weekend result of grabbing only one of four possible points is not the result the Rocket were looking to take into the All-Star break, but for the moment they retain a playoff position. They’ll have the week off and get back to work with two home games next weekend against the division-leading Belleville Senators.

Plus / Minus

▲  Charles Hudon, Laurent Dauphin

▼  Gustav Olofsson, Matthew Peca