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Cayden Primeau was unable to eliminate the Monsters
Michaël Petit
Cayden Primeau was unable to eliminate the Monsters
Credit: On this Sunday afternoon, the Laval Rocket faced the Cleveland Monsters in game #3 of the series. Laval won the first two games and could end the series three out of five and move on to the next round. Jacob Fowler was excellent in the first two games of the series, even recording his first […]
On this Sunday afternoon, the Laval Rocket faced the Cleveland Monsters in game #3 of the series.

Laval won the first two games and could end the series three out of five and move on to the next round. Jacob Fowler was excellent in the first two games of the series, even recording his first career pro shutout.

However, Fowler didn’t get the start in this game, with Cayden Primeau back in net.

The Rocket could also count on Oliver Kapanen, who got his baptism of fire with Laval.

The Finn took Brandon Gignac’s place in the line-up and played on the third line.

Here’s the complete line-up Pascal Vincent presented for the game:

The game got off to a fierce start, with plenty of bickering in the opening moments.

We also saw Logan Mailloux take a solid swing at Denton Mateychuk (possibly the Monsters’ best player), who retreated to the dressing room.

What’s more, Florian Xhekaj lit up Place Bell by throwing down the gloves with Joseph LaBate, who isn’t the softest.

The fight ended quickly when Xhekaj capsized his opponent.

After 20 minutes of play, there were still no goals and Primeau made a few key saves.

The Rocket enjoyed two power plays in the first half of the game, and the quintet deployed was very young, much like the CH’s first wave.

Kapanen, Owen Beck, Joshua Roy, Adam Engstrom and David Reinbacher are all under the age of 22. Incredible!

As much as Primeau had a solid game, Jet Greaves, the Monsters’ goaltender who finished the regular season with the Blue Jackets, kept his club in the game.

He delivered excellent performances with Columbus, recording two shutouts in just 11 starts (!!!) and continued to be excellent with the Monsters.

As Anthony Marcotte says in his tweet above, Kapanen is having a solid LAH debut.

Cleveland got a breakaway late in the second period and we saw Reinbacher make a very nice defensive tuck to prevent Roman Ahcan from capitalizing. However, as Ahcan rounded the net, he put the ball back in front of the net and Dylan Gambrell opened the scoring.

Both clubs retired to the locker room with the score 1-0 in favor of the visitors.

In contrast to the last game, when the Monsters had only registered 19 shots, they fired much more often, having 12 shots after 20 minutes and totaling 21 after 40 minutes of play.

Primeau may have conceded on Gambrell’s shot, but there wasn’t much he could do about the sequence and he tried his best to make the save.

With 15 minutes left in the game, the Rocket thought they had tied the game when there was a scrum in front of the net, but the goal was eventually disallowed.

Moments later, Cleveland doubled their lead with Gambrell’s second of the game.

On the sequence, Reinbacher made the wrong decision and looked bad, but there was a bad defensive shift, which created an overhang.

With just under nine minutes to play in the final twenty, the Rocket were able to take advantage of a power play and it was Cleveland who capitalized to give themselves a 3-0 lead in the game.

Roman Ahcan recovered with another breakaway after a bad play by Joshua Roy.

Everything seemed to be falling apart for Primeau, who had enjoyed an excellent first half. The third period was much more difficult for the American goaltender, as he allowed two goals on four small shots…

Fans must be missing Fowler, but Primeau hasn’t played in a while and was showing signs of rust.

Fortunately for the Rocket, hope was rekindled by a Laurent Dauphin goal.

Let’s just say he was lucky, as the Quebecer hooked the ball past goalkeeper Jet Greaves, who (finally) gave way for the first time.

It was Stanislav Svozil (Connor Bedard’s former junior teammate) who tried to clear, but shot at his teammate and the puck snuck behind Greaves.

The goal re-energized Pascal Vincent’s troupe, who knocked on the door on a few occasions shortly after Dauphin’s goal.

Unfortunately, the Rocket were unable to get back into the game.

The final score: 3-1 to the Monsters.

Game #4 of the series takes place Tuesday night, again at Place Bell.


Overtime

– Interestingly, Jakub Dobes (wearing a Logan Mailloux jersey) and Arber Xhekaj were present for the game.

– Once again, David Reinbacher was solid in the game. He generated some offense, but was especially indispensable in his own zone. The Austrian won several battles in front of the net and didn’t hesitate to use his stick to make the job much harder for his opponents.

Even though Gambrell scored while he was on the ice, he still pulled off quite a save to deny Roman Ahcan on the breakaway. However, on Cleveland’s second goal, Reinbacher looked bad for a rare occasion.

– The Rocket gave it their all in the third period, registering no less than 19 shots in the final 20 minutes. Jet Greaves was the Monsters’ hero in the win, stopping 36 of 37 shots.

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