(Syracuse) Brandon Gignac scored his ninth goal of the season at 8:58 of the third period and gave the Laval Rocket a 3-2 victory over the Syracuse Crunch on Wednesday night at Upstate Medical University Arena.
With the score 2-2, Gignac received a pass from defender Logan Mailloux, who had advanced deep into the opposing zone, and fired a one-timer that beat goaltender Matt Tomkins to his right.
Two other Rocket players stood out. Defender Tobie Paquette-Bisson scored a first career double in the American League in addition to multiplying good hits.
The Rocket’s other star was goaltender Jakub Dobes, who faced 29 shots and collected a third straight victory. He only gave in to Gabriel Dumont, in the first period, and Gage Goncalves, in the second period.
The Rocket finished the game with 24 shots and finished a three-game road trip with two wins.
The Rocket will play one last game before the Christmas break on Friday evening, at Place Bell, against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
A good first period
Facing a good team, second in the North section standings, solid in front of their fans and at the heart of a great streak of success, the Rocket looked good in the first period.
And this, even though he quickly found himself facing a one-goal setback, when Dumont deflected a shot off the wrists of defenseman Jack Thompson at 3:48.
Jean-François Houle’s men equalized the score some seven minutes later.
Posted along the ramp on the right flank, Lucas Condotta attracted opposing players towards him before relaying the disc to Paquette-Bisson, who was at the blue line.
Left unguarded, the Rocket defender was able to advance to the end of the right faceoff circle and beat Tomkins with a shot into the upper left area.
The Rocket was unable to maintain this pace in the second period, and yet the score was still tied after 40 minutes.
The Crunch struck early, precisely 76 seconds into the game. The Rocket found himself in difficulty in his territory when Gabriel Bourque lost his stick. Then, Mailloux’s clumsy play behind his goal line led to the net of Goncalves, who had been forgotten in the slot.
Joël Bouchard’s men controlled the game for most of the period to the point of directing 10 pucks towards Dobes and limiting the Rocket to just three shots.
The third, obtained with just over two minutes left in the middle period, was the good one, however.
Paquette-Bisson first created a turnaround by hitting Dumont hard in the center of the ice. Paquette-Bisson then came to support the attack and took advantage of a sudden bounce of the puck on the ramp behind the Crunch goal, after a missed shot from Xavier Simoneau, to create the tie for the second time in the match.
This goal from the Rocket defender seemed to whip his teammates. They started the third period with confidence and took the lead for the first time in the game when Gignac completed a three-way play started by Joshua Roy.
Gignac thus collected a point in a seventh game in a row.
With about two minutes left, the Crunch pulled their goaltender in favor of a sixth attacker, but Dobes and his teammates held on.