(Belleville) Forward Joshua Roy as well as defensemen Jayden Struble and Justin Barron will be in the Laval Rocket lineup for its important game against the Belleville Senators, Friday evening at CAA Arena.
Head coach Jean-François Houle confirmed these decisions after his players’ training session in the morning.
Recalled by the Montreal Canadiens to play his first NHL game last Tuesday, defenseman Logan Mailloux is back in the Rocket fold and will also face the Senators.
Incidentally, Houle announced that defenders Olivier Galipeau and Mattias Norlinder will be inactive, as will attacker Arnaud Durandeau.
Jakub Dobes will be the Rocket’s goalkeeper.
Roy will play his first match since March 19. That evening, the 20-year-old forward was wearing the Montreal Canadiens uniform against the Edmonton Oilers when he suffered an upper body injury. From then on, he did not play again with the Canadian this season, but obtained the green light from the doctors at the start of the week for the last two games of the Rocket’s regular schedule.
With the Laval team, Roy will be on his first outing since February 9 in Toronto, a match after which the Canadian called him up for the second time this season. In 40 games with the Rocket, Roy amassed 32 points, including 13 goals. In the Canadian uniform, Roy scored four goals and nine points in 23 games.
PHOTO MARC DESROSIERS, USA TODAY SPORTS VIA REUTERS CON
Jayden Struble
Struble’s last game with the Rocket was even further back, on November 18. He then had two assists and posted a plus-2 defensive rating in a 6-3 Rocket loss in Utica. Struble played in 12 games with the Rocket and collected one goal and five assists, with a defensive ratio of plus-4.
As for Barron (2-9-11), he participated in 30 games with the Rocket before being urgently recalled by the Canadian on April 6, due to injuries to Kaiden Guhle and Arber Xhekaj. He played in the Habs’ last seven regular season games.
PHOTO RICK OSENTOSKI, USA TODAY SPORTS VIA REUTERS CON
Justin Barron
Houle will also be able to count on the return of center Mitchell Stephens, who missed the April 13 game in Cleveland due to an upper body injury that occurred two days earlier, also in Cleveland. However, Brandon Gignac, injured in his lower body, will miss a fourth consecutive game.
Furthermore, Friday’s meeting will mark the debut of striker Luke Tuch among the professionals. Florian Xhekaj will also participate in the match.
With two games in its season, the Rocket (33-29-8 – 74 points) occupies sixth place, four points from the Senators (36-28-6) who hold fifth place, the last giving access to the playoffs in the Northern section of the American League.
The two teams will face each other again on Saturday evening, this time at Place Bell, and the Rocket must win both games in regulation time to hope to participate in the first playoff round.
With two wins in regulation, the Rocket will finish ahead of the Senators in the final standings by virtue of a greater number of wins in regulation, which serves as the first tiebreaker.
The fate of the Rocket would then depend on Utica (31-27-11 – 73 points) which has three games remaining, Friday and Saturday against Syracuse and Sunday against Rochester.