(Laval) Brett Murray broke the tie in the third period and the Rochester Americans defeated the Laval Rocket 3-1, Saturday afternoon, at Place Bell.
While the Rocket was playing on the power play, Murray escaped and deceived Jakub Dobes with a nice backhand feint.
The Americans (21-16-4) took their revenge, after suffering a 6-2 defeat the day before. They also won for the first time in three matches.
The Rocket (19-18-6) didn’t have a bad game, but he will enter the All-Star break having lost four of his last five outings. Logan Mailloux will be the team’s representative during this mid-season classic.
Brandon Gignac scored the only goal for the Montreal Canadiens’ farm club. Dobes, making his second start in less than 24 hours, made 25 saves in a losing cause.
Isak Rosen and Mason Jobst, in an empty net, also scored for the Americans, who overtook the Rocket in the standings of the North section of the American Hockey League.
Quebecer Devon Levi was sometimes lucky, but he also made several good saves to slow down Laval’s attempt to come back. He gave up only once in 33 throws.
The Rocket will take advantage of four full days off before heading to Toronto to face the Marlies next Friday.
Close duel
After Friday night’s crushing defeat, no one was surprised to see the Americans get off to a good start Saturday afternoon. However, they were hot when the Rocket found the back of the net, at 13:37.
After Jan Mysak forced Brendan Warren into a turnover in front of his goalie, Levi stopped a point-blank shot from Jared Davidson. Riley Kidney pushed the puck behind the red line, but the referee disallowed the goal because he had just called a stoppage in play.
The visitors took advantage of this chance to really open the scoring, a little over three minutes later.
During a quick counterattack, Rosen handed the puck to Tyson Jost, who immediately passed it to Jiri Kulich. The Czech’s shot was blocked by Dobes, but the return stopped at the foot of Rosen, who hit the target.
Laval tried to tie the game before the end of the first period, but they ultimately had to wait until the start of the second period to do so.
Lias Andersson took down Kale Clague at the blue line and passed the puck to Gignac to orchestrate a surplus. Gignac escaped the coverage of Ethan Prow and served a superb feint to Levi to score his 14e goal of the campaign.
Both teams maintained a brisk pace of play during the middle period, without adding a goal to their total. The Rocket notably wasted two opportunities on the power play by playing with a little too much lace.
The difficulties with an extra player continued in the third period, as the Americans broke the deadlock shorthanded. Justin Richards provided a second effort to launch Murray into a breakaway and the latter beat Dobes to give his team the lead.
The Rocket increased the pressure in the final minutes of the period, but came up against Levi before Jobst closed the books.