ROCKET
Laval

4-3

SENATORS
Belleville

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Terry – Cracknell – Boucher
Audette – McCarron – Boucher
Gregoire – Eisenschmid – Waked
Broll – Ebbing – Baun[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Bourque – Leblanc
Parisi – Lernout
Gelinas – Petgrave[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:
Fucale
McNiven

Scratches:

Yannick Veilleux (lower body), Matt Taormina (upper body), Niki Petti (lower body), Willie Corrin, Luc-Olivier Blain

Injury List:

Jeremiah Addison (shoulder)

Game Report

It was a good night for Laval on Friday night when they left Utica with a decisive 5-2 victory over the Comets. The team played well and deserved the win, and hoped to use that momentum as they headed back to Canada on Saturday night to visit the Belleville Senators.

The first period started a bit slowly at first, but it wasn’t long before Daniel Audette was carrying the puck through the neutral zone to quickly wrist it once he crossed the blue line, to light the lamp on a soft goal that Marcus Hogberg likely would want back.

Despite a bit of pushing and shoving after a few whistles, both teams were relatively well-disciplined in the opening 20 minutes. Only Belleville found themselves in the penalty box once for a tripping minor in the period.

Nick Paul didn’t waste any time in the second period getting the Senators on the board to tie the game at 1-1 when he banked the puck past Zachary Fucale short side.

David Broll soon answered that with a goal of his own as he drove the Belleville net hard and put the puck easily past Hogberg. Broll then served a too-many-men penalty for Laval and during the power play Paul scored his second of the night when he scooped up a big rebound off of Fucale.

A big scrum in front of the Rocket bench brought a roughing penalty for Markus Eisenschmid and 10-minute misconducts for continuing an altercation to Jeremy Gregoire and Andreas Englund. Then Paul finished a natural hat trick before the period expired when Fucale couldn’t get across in time after Ben Sexton fired a perfect cross-ice pass to Paul. The teams headed to the second intermission with Belleville leading 3-2.

The third period was all Laval as they mounted a two-goal comeback to claim a 4-3 victory over Belleville.

First, Michael McCarron patiently centered the puck to put it right on Gregoire’s stick who banked a shot right into the Belleville net. Next, Eric Gelinas teed up one of his blasts from the blue line right to Markus Eisenschmid who was waiting in the slot to deflect the puck past Hogberg.

It’s been a while since Laval strung together two consecutive wins, and the Rocket look to take that kind of confidence and momentum home to Quebec where they’ll play the Bridgeport Sound Tigers on Friday before heading back out on the road to face the Syracuse Crunch and Rochester Americans.

▲     Jeremy Gregoire, Jordan Boucher, Daniel Audette

▼

1. Nick Paul  BEL
2. Daniel Audette  LAV
3. Ben Sexton  BEL

Interviews conducted by Amy Johnson for AHL Report

Eisenschmid and Boucher both quietly sneaking up in the offensive productivity category the past few weeks. Hard work paying off for these two. @TheAHLReport @RocketSports #GoRocket

— Amy (@FlyersRule) February 25, 2018

Habs360 Podcast | Trade Deadline Looming for Habs [e237] https://t.co/ROrf8cXDOT #allhabs #gohabsgo pic.twitter.com/CWdoMT826P

— All Habs (Canadiens) (@AllHabs) February 24, 2018

Follow @theAHLReport on Twitter