(Laval) The Laval Rocket finished their first 10 games on a rather brutal note and will now have a full week to correct what went wrong.
After signing a great victory with character against the Toronto Marlies on Friday evening, the Montreal Canadiens’ farm club thought they were back on track. The Marlies, however, responded with a 5-0 slap on Saturday night, which raised questions in the Laval camp.
The young group at the disposal of head coach Jean-François Houle was full of promise before the start of the season, but it was quickly shown that nothing was easy in the American Hockey League, regardless the level of talent.
The Rocket are currently 2-7-1 and have the worst points percentage (.250) in the American League, tied with the Chicago Wolves.
PHOTO CHRISTINNE MUSCHI, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
The Laval team will not play any matches before Sunday, November 12, but we can bet that the practices during this “break” will be intense – as was the case this week.
“Two wins in 10 games is not enough,” insisted striker Lucas Condotta. We need to shake things up because it’s embarrassing. We have to have good training and all the players have to look in the mirror and know if this is what they want to do with their lives. »
The Laval team will not play any matches before Sunday, November 12, but we can bet that the practices during this “break” will be intense – as was the case this week.
The Rocket coaching staff will be accompanied by the Canadian development team to try to refine several aspects of the game. They should be spoiled for choice.
Starting with the defense, which ranks last in the American League in goals allowed (49). The penalty kill unit has improved in recent games, but it ranks 21e league level while the power play unit is 24e.
“It’s not just one thing to improve, but several. We must work together. We must become a team and take our responsibilities. This is when we will start to win,” analyzed defender Tobie Bisson.
Houle is willing to be patient with his young players, but they will have to show him that they continue to learn and improve. The head coach also hopes that they will put their finger on the kind of team they want to be in the American League.
“I don’t think that defeat [de samedi] sets us back in our development because we won this weekend and it felt good. But our identity as a team is not there yet. We’re still figuring out what kind of team we can become and we’ll have to find that identity soon. We will talk to the players about it this week,” Houle said.
There seems to be a lot of negative things to come out of this first month of Rocket activities, but Houle still wanted to balance things out by bringing out the positives from this difficult start to the season.
“Some young people show great things too. Logan Mailloux took two good shots Friday that led to a goal. [Jayden] Struble has started the season pretty well overall. [Joshua] Roy has 12 points. There are positives and negatives and it’s not always easy for the coach to balance all that,” he said.
After this period without a game, the Rocket will play eight of its next 10 games abroad.