(Laval) With a streak of five victories and points in the standings in 10 straight games, the Laval Rocket seems set for glory. Although he is aware of it, head coach Jean-François Houle does not let him sweat, preferring to keep his two feet, and those of his players, firmly anchored on the ground.
The Laval team scored four unanswered goals in the third period en route to a 5-2 victory over the Utica Comets on Wednesday evening at Place Bell.
This triumph allowed the Rocket (18-14-6 -42 points) to catch up with the Rochester Americans in third place in the North section. The two clubs will face each other on Saturday in Rochester, which has two games in the bank.
We had to go back to April 2021 to retrace the Rocket’s last streak of five wins. His next victory will allow him to equal his team record in this regard, a feat he achieved twice, in 2019 and March 2021.
The Rocket could achieve this feat Friday in Syracuse, against the Crunch.
“We’re taking it one game at a time,” replied Houle, without the slightest hesitation, when asked how far his team could go.
“Our job as instructors, sometimes, is to keep (the players) awake and ready for all the matches. It’s important to stay on task, to continue to improve. Having attention to detail is very important. »
Facing a one-goal deficit in the third period, the Rocket first tied the score thanks to captain Gabriel Bourque’s first goal of the season at 8:09 of the period.
Less than seven minutes later, the Laval squad scored twice in just 10 seconds, thanks to Mitchell Stephens and Logan Mailloux.
The latter added a goal into an empty net with just under two minutes remaining in the third period.
William Trudeau scored the Rocket’s first goal in the first period.
“It felt good to score, but the guys played as a team again in the third period,” Bourque said.
“We came out aggressively, everyone wanted to win the match, there was no question of us losing. Everyone showed up third. »
Lucas Condotta also played a key role in the victory by collecting assists on the goals of Bourque and Stephens.
Shortly after the game, he was entitled to a sort of reward since the Canadian recalled him in anticipation of the visit of the New York Islanders and Patrick Roy to the Bell Center on Thursday.
Brian Halonen scored both Comets goals against Jakub Dobes.
In the victory, the Rocket goaltender was solid, blocking 27 pucks.
“Again this evening, he gave a very good performance. We feel confident when he is on the ice. We see that he wants to win and that he feels good. It’s beautiful to see,” Bourque said.
For his part, the Rocket fired 33 shots towards Akira Schmid.
Repeated punishments
For just over 14 minutes in the first period, the Rocket controlled the tempo of the game and held a 1-0 lead thanks to a goal from Trudeau, who beat Schmid at 11:26 with a shot in the upper right part of the net.
Then suddenly, Houle’s troop began to parade to the penalty box. The first was Mattias Norlinder, at 14:39, followed by Brandon Gignac, at 16:35, then Olivier Galipeau — the latter for four minutes for high stick — at 17:39.
Limited to four shots so far, the Comets players did what they were supposed to do: control the puck and spend a lot of time in the Rocket zone.
And despite the fact that Dobes made many quality saves, the law of average worked in favor of the visitors.
Completely forgotten to the right of the Rocket goaltender, Halonen took advantage of a wide open net to tie the score with 0.9 seconds on the clock, on the Comets’ ninth shot during this long numerical superiority.
With just under 11 minutes remaining in the middle period, Halonen added his second of the night and broke the tie with a more NHL-style incisive wrist shot.
The Rocket had chances to tie the score towards the end of the second period, notably Philippe Maillet, who escaped alone in front of Schmid, who did not flinch.
“We had a lot of chances in the second, but I thought we were trying to be too cute,” Houle analyzed.
“We are a team that has to make two passes and send the puck to the net, create traffic and take rebounds. But there, we tried three or four passes. This is not our identity. »
Rather calm, the Rocket fans were able to wake up around the middle of the third period when Bourque recovered a puck in the right faceoff circle and surprised Schmid with a precise shot into the upper part of the net.
They then exploded with joy following goals from Mitchell and Mailloux, scored at 14:44 and 14:54.
From the back of his zone, Mailloux put the final nail in the Comets’ coffin at 18:07.