Rocket Weekly: Laval Hits the Break on a High Note

As has often been the case during Laval’s run, it wasn’t always pretty but the Rocket managed to do just enough to pick up wins in both of their games against Hartford, extending their winning streak to five as they hit the All-Star break.

The Week That Was

Jan. 31: Laval 3, Hartford 1 – Laval carried the lead for most of the game but it was still quite close.  Owen Beck scored less than three minutes in and that was the only goal for another 45 minutes of game time.  However, Alex Belzile tied it up just past the eight-minute mark of the third but Laval grabbed the lead with Florian Xhekaj scoring on a rebound on the power play less than two minutes later, standing up as the game-winner.

Feb. 1: Laval 5, Hartford 4 (OT) – The Rocket were shorthanded for this one as they didn’t have enough players to ice a full roster (more on that later).  They were thoroughly outplayed in the first period and were down 3-1 at the end of it.  However, they did well to battle back in the second, outscoring Hartford 3-1 to tie it up including a penalty shot goal from Jared Davidson and Sean Farrell’s second goal of the game.  That set the stage for Xhekaj to be the hero again as he snuck a shot past Dylan Garand with ten seconds left in overtime for the winner.

StatPack

Skaters:

#	Player	GP	G	A	+/-	SOG	PIMS
2	Noel Hoefenmayer	2	0	1	-1	7	4
5	Gustav Lindstrom	2	0	0	E	2	2
11	Rafael Harvey-Pinard	2	0	3	+1	4	2
12	Alex Barre-Boulet	2	1	2	-2	9	2
15	Sean Farrell	2	2	1	+1	8	0
17	Luke Tuch	2	0	0	-1	3	5
18	Vincent Arseneau	2	0	0	-1	2	0
21	Riley Kidney	2	0	0	-1	1	0
23	Tyler Wotherspoon	2	0	0	E	0	0
24	Logan Mailloux	1	0	0	E	0	0
27	Laurent Dauphin	2	1	0	-2	3	0
42	Lucas Condotta	2	0	2	+2	0	0
48	Filip Mesar	2	0	0	E	4	0
49	Jared Davidson	2	1	2	+3	4	0
56	Adam Engstrom	2	0	1	E	4	2
62	Owen Beck	1	1	0	+1	4	0
63	Florian Xhekaj	2	2	0	E	3	4
65	Zack Hayes	2	0	1	E	0	4
84	William Trudeau	1	0	0	E	1	0

Goalies:

#	Player	Record	GAA	SV%	SO
30	Cayden Primeau	2-0-0	2.40	.915	0

Team Leaders:

Goals: Jared Davidson (15)
Assists: Alex Barre-Boulet (25)
Points: Alex Barre-Boulet (35)
+/-: Jared Davidson (+20)
PIMS: Florian Xhekaj (86)
Shots: Joshua Roy (126)

News and Notes

– With Connor Hughes not being 100% due to illness, Hunter Jones was briefly recalled from ECHL Trois-Rivieres but was sent down without playing.

– Alex Beaucage had that same fate after being brought up following the announcement that Xavier Simoneau will miss four to six weeks with an upper-body injury.

– Owen Beck and Logan Mailloux were recalled to Montreal and didn’t play in the rematch on Saturday.

– Laval hit the All-Star break with the highest win percentage in the AHL.  They also sit second in two categories, fewest goals allowed and penalty minutes.

– William Trudeau returned to the lineup from his injury.  However, Gustav Lindstrom left Saturday’s game early as he has been playing through an injury of his own.  Laurent Dauphin also left that game early.

Last Game’s Lines

Kidney – Dauphin – Barre-Boulet
Farrell – Condotta – Harvey-Pinard
Davidson – Xhekaj – Mesar
Arseneau – Tuch

Wotherspoon – Trudeau
Hoefenmayer – Lindstrom
Hayes – Engstrom

The Week Ahead

Friday/Saturday at Toronto – It’s only the third and fourth matchups of the season between the two teams (and only out of eight for the year instead of twelve).  The Marlies have been almost as stingy as Laval has this season in terms of keeping pucks out of the net with veteran Matt Murray dominating although he’s on recall at the moment.  Alex Steeves is pacing the way offensively and with 25 goals already, he’s only two away from his career high.  Former Montreal farmhands Joseph Blandisi and Logan Shaw are both among Toronto’s top five scorers as well.

Final Thought

For the most part this season, the Habs have done well in terms of not pulling players up from Laval to sit them.  With a young Rocket team battling for seeding, keeping as much of that core together as possible makes sense.  But on Saturday, they kicked off a series of ill-timed moves that ultimately left them unable to dress a full lineup.

At 10 AM ET, Alex Beaucage was sent down to Trois-Rivieres (and had a three-point game for them that afternoon, no less).  While that was seemingly risky, they still had 12 healthy forwards and would be fine as long as Montreal didn’t call anyone up.  Whoops.

Three and a half hours later, the Habs decided that bringing up Logan Mailloux and Owen Beck not even 90 minutes before puck drop was the right decision to make.  My guess is that they didn’t want to run the risk of them playing three games in as many days (though Beck did that last month on his first recall) so pulling them from the Laval game made sense.  But if that was under consideration, why was Beaucage sent down?  Yes, Laval had to play short a player that game but it felt like a bit of a self-inflicted wound.

It got weirder for Beck and Mailloux who were already slated to be in California for All-Star weekend.  They took the warmup with the Habs in Anaheim which was fine.  I’ve said before they need to do a better job of having their projected scratches take the skate in case something happens.  But after officially scratching them, they waited for more than three hours before sending those two back down.  While the event was only being held 120 miles away, they waited too long to send them down so they weren’t able to make it back in time for the Skills Competition later on Sunday.

Talk about an odd All-Star experience for those two.  Plucked from Laval’s lineup not long before game time Saturday, flown to Anaheim to serve as healthy scratches Sunday, then not sent back in time to take part in the first half of the All-Star event.  That was a lot of travel for a whole lot of nothing although both players did get to play in the three-on-three tournament on Monday at least.