(Syracuse) Early in training camp, head coach Jean-François Houle estimated that it would be necessary to wait until the holiday season before his young team began to gain a little confidence. Wednesday evening, five days before Christmas, the Laval Rocket won a match that it would have possibly lost in October.
Brandon Gignac scored his ninth goal of the season at 8:58 of the third period and gave the Laval team a 3-2 victory against the Syracuse Crunch 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.
The Rocket thus completed a three-game journey with two wins and a loss. Above all, he recovered after the scathing 7-1 failure at the hands of the powerful Hershey Bears on Saturday.
“It’s a nice response after our match in Hershey where we were a little disappointed with the result. Tonight, the guys responded well,” analyzed Houle.
“We stayed calm, we scored goals at good times and the goalkeeper made some key saves. »
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.
His second goal was scored with a little more than two minutes remaining in the second period, while the Laval team had been dominated for a large part of the engagement.
“That goal was very important,” admitted the Rocket head coach.
“I think with a young team it’s important to score in moments like that. When you have difficulty winning, these goals become very important. It sure helped us find energy for the third period. »
The Rocket’s other star was goaltender Jakub Dobes, who faced 29 shots for his third straight victory. He only gave in to Gabriel Dumont, in the first period, and Gage Goncalves, in the second period.
The Rocket, who finished the game with 24 shots, will play one last game before the Christmas break on Friday evening, at Place Bell, against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
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.
The Rocket tied 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 unattended, 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.
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.
The Rocket 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 match in a row.
With about two minutes left, the Crunch pulled their goalie in favor of a sixth attacker, but Dobes and his teammates held on.
“There was a lot of momentum on the other side, we weren’t playing a very good match. Going for a goal at the end of the second period, that way, I think it motivated the guys. We knew what to do, Brandon went for a big goal and we were able to slow them down,” noted Paquette-Bisson.
