ROCKET
Laval

SENATORS
Belleville

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

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

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

Goaltenders:
Lindgren
McNiven

Scratches:

Adam Plant, Ryan Culkin, Marco Roy, Phelix Martineau

Injury List:

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

Game Report

With two road wins under their belt, the Laval Rocket made their way back north across the border on Monday for a Family Day afternoon matinee in Belleville, Ontario.

With a surging Senators team on an 8-0-0-4 streak, and playing on home ice, the Rocket knew they would need to play a full 60 minutes to have hopes of defeating their division rival. In net, Charlie Lindgren and Marcus Hogberg were designated as the starters for their respective teams.

The game started well for Laval as they got on the board within the first five minutes of play. Michael Chaput scored his first goal since November, his eighth for the season, when he picked up a loose puck left behind in a broken play from the circle and wristed it past Hogberg.

Despite having the 30th-ranked penalty kill in the AHL, the Rocket managed to kill off an elbowing penalty taken by Alexandre Grenier. However when Joseph LaBate then went to the box for boarding Michael Pezzetta, it was Belleville who dominated. Jack Rodewald and Erik Burgdoerfer each scored shorthanded goals, just 28 seconds apart, in the final minute of the period. After playing a decent 20 minutes, the Rocket headed to the dressing room trailing the Senators 2-1.

The second period was all Belleville to start, but it was Laval who got pucks across the goal line. First up was Hayden Verbeek scoring his first AHL goal when he finished off a centering pass from Alexandre Alain and Pezzetta.

Penalty trouble cropped up as Xavier Ouellet took two consecutive penalties, for slashing and tripping, but Chaput potted his second goal of the game, this time shorthanded, to give the Rocket a 3-2 lead heading into the second intermission.

The Rocket continued to dominate in the third period, outshooting the Senators 10-6 in the frame. Although they continued with an aggressive forecheck, Nick Paul found a way to snap a backhander through traffic from the circle to tie the game at 3-3 with just over two minutes left in regulation. That goal forced the game into extra minutes.

In the overtime period, there was plenty of back and forth on the ice as each time tried to find a way to get close to the net. Lukas Vejdemo thought he had the game winner when he fired a wrister into the back of Hogberg’s net from the slot, but the officials called it off due to goaltender interference. It was a weak call, at best. However it gave Belleville some momentum and Paul came up clutch for the second time in the game when he potted the game-winning goal.

The Rocket’s win streak came to end at two, but they did manage to get one point out of this game.  Next they’ll travel to Syracuse for what is sure to be a tough divisional matchup against the Crunch, who currently sit in second place in the North Division.

Plus/Minus

▲     Nikita Jevpalovs, Michael Chaput

▼     Xavier Ouellet, Jake Evans, Alex Kile

Stars of the Game

1. Nick Paul  BEL
2. Michael Chaput  LAV
3. Darren Archibald  BEL

Interviews conducted by Amy J for AHL Report