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Cape Breton Eagles

Olympiques Stay Alive with 4-3 Victory

March 30, 2017 - Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL)
Cape Breton Eagles News Release


GATINEAU- For the third straight game, the Gatineau Olympiques scored first. This time they were finally able to finish the job, scoring a 4-3 victory to stay alive in their best of seven series with the Screaming Eagles. Cape Breton now leads the series 3-1.

Olympiques coach Eric Landry juggled his lines for the contest, putting together big guns Vitali Abramov, Zach MacEwan and Yakov Trenin. The move would pay dividends as Trenin scored his first goal of the series at the 5:20 mark. The lead would double as Vincent Milot-Ouellet would score while falling in front of the net, notching Gatineau's first power play goal of the series. However, the Eagles would get on the board at 16:50 when Ty Fournier would convert a cross-ice pass from Alexis Sansfaçon and it was a 2-1 game heading to the break. It was the first time in the series the Olympiques held a lead at the intermission.

That Gatineau lead would be both expanded, lost, and regained in the middle frame. At the 4:25 mark of the middle stanza Jacob Lapierre was left alone in front of the net, and with not much space slid it under Kyle Jessiman to make it a 3-1 score. The two goal lead would hold after a lengthy review saw a would be Eagle marker from Drake Batherson disallowed.

Batherson would hit the scoresheet for his fourth of the series, though, on the power play, on a one timer feed from Ross MacDougall. Then with under six minutes to play in period two, the Eagles were given another big opportunity- a 59 second two man advantage. After throwing the puck around Cape Breton would tie the game just after the first penalty elapsed as Giovanni Fiore notched his third of the series.

But the tie game wouldn't last for long as another of Gatineau's big guns would score for the first time in the series. Abramov would pick up a pass from off the boards and put the puck past Jessiman. The Olympiques took a 4-3 advantage into the third period.

No one was able to light the lamp in the final twenty minutes although the Eagles believed they had a tying goal. It came on a sequence after Abramov was denied on a nice defensive play by Eagles captain Olivier LeBlanc. The play went the other way as Phélix Martineau carried it over the blueline to create a scoring chance. Massimo Carozza banked in the rebound but it was ruled after a review that he batted the puck in with his hand.

In the dying minutes of the game, Marc-André Dumont called a timeout and shortly after would elect to pull his netminder for an extra attacker but was unable to find the tying goal. With the 4-3 victory Gatineau picked up its first win of the series.

Gatineau defenseman Alex Breton returned from a lower body injury to play his first game of the series. He collected an assist and put two shots on goal.

Berube picked up the win, stopping 28 of 31 shots in his first start of the series. Jessiman took the loss, stopping 27 of 31 shots.

The Screaming Eagles will have another chance to finish the series on the road, as with the 2-3-2 format game five goes in Gatineau on Friday night. It's an 8:30 PM Atlantic time puck drop, and you can catch all the action on 1270 AM CJCB or online at http://www.cjcbradio.com. Three stars: 1. Vitali Abramov (Gatineau) 1 goal, 2 assists, +3 2. Zack MacEwen (Gatineau) 2 assists, +3, 4 shots 3. Giovanni Fiore (Cape Breton) 1 goal, 6 shots

Scratches For Cape Breton: Olivier Bourret, Logan O'Neil

Scratches For Gatineau: Ryan O'Bonsawin, Eric Eschweiler

Check out the Cape Breton Eagles Statistics

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Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League Stories from March 30, 2017


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