ROCKET
Laval

1-4

MONSTERS
Cleveland

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Audette – Verbeek – Grenier
Belzile – Evans – Cox
Kile – Vejdemo – Alain
Pezzetta – Martineau – Adams-Moisan/one_half]

[one_half_last]Alzner – Lernout
Ouellet – Fleury
Sklenicka – Lamarche[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:
McNiven
Lindgren

Scratches:

Adam Plant, Nikita Jevpalovs, Marc-Olivier Roy, Ryan Culkin

Injury List:

Gustav Olofsson (shoulder), Noah Juulsen (eye), Michael McCarron (shoulder), Antoine Waked (upper body injury), Hunter Shinkaruk (upper body injury)

Game Report

After giving up two early goals on Thursday night, the Laval Rocket had come back with a gutsy 5-4 win over the Cleveland Monsters. Would they be able to complete consecutive weekends with back-to-back wins? 60 minutes of hockey would give us the answer.

Head coach Joel Bouchard opted to give the crease to Michael McNiven once again, who came into the previous night’s game in relief of Charlie Lindgren. Admittedly, neither McNiven nor Brad Thiessen were very busy in the first 20 minutes of play, as the shot total was even at four for each side.

The Monsters did, however, manage to score in the opening frame again. With Maxim Lamarche in the penalty box for hooking, it took just four seconds after the first draw of the power play for Adam Clendening to blast a point shot and Zac Dalpe to deflect it in the slot past McNiven.

The Rocket were gifted a fantastic opportunity at the end of the period when Cleveland’s Paul Bittner took a slashing and unsportsmanlike conduct penalty which gave Laval a full two minutes of five-on-three play – most of which was played in the second period.

Cleveland managed to put 19 shots on the board in the middle frame, leaving McNiven scrambling at times through plenty of crease traffic to keep the puck out of his net. He was successful, denying the Monsters any goals during that 20 minutes of gameplay.

At the other end of the ice, Jake Evans scored his second goal in as many nights (his 12th of the season), while Laval was shorthanded. All in all, it was an admirable period in which the Rocket looked to have a bit of life.

But all of that changed in the final frame where, despite getting more shots on goal than their opponent, Laval simply could not get the puck past Thiessen. Cleveland opened the period with a goal by Mark Letestu where he deflected the puck out of mid-air and sent it sailing over McNiven’s outstretched pad. Once Bouchard pulled his netminder for the extra attacker in the waning minutes of the game, the Monsters potted two empty net goals to put this game out of reach.

The Rocket now find themselves back in a position where they’re 10 points out of the playoff race, with time running out in the season to make up that kind of ground. The team heads back to Quebec now, where they’ll get ready to meet their division rivals, the Toronto Marlies, on Wednesday night at Place Bell.

Plus/Minus

▲    Brett Lernout, Jake Evans

▼    Xavier Ouellet, Alexandre Alain, Alex Kile

Stars of the Game

1. Zac Dalpe  CLE
2. Mark Letestu  CLE
3. Brad Thiessen  CLE

Interviews conducted by Amy Johnson for AHL Report

From The Press Box Podcast [S2/E22] | Laval Update, Chaput, Hart, Trades, Gritty https://t.co/Fr6G3J3bJI pic.twitter.com/fjuHXSYb5v

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