Sports stats



AHL Laval Rocket

Després Gives Rocket 4-3 Victory over Marlies in Overtime

December 8, 2018 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Laval Rocket News Release


TORONTO - The Laval Rocket played their second game of the weekend at the Coca-Cola Coliseum on Saturday afternoon, where after a lot of back-and-forth scoring between them and their divisional rival, Simon Després gave the Rocket a 4-3 victory over the Toronto Marlies due to an overtime powerplay goal. Alex Belzile notched two points in the win.

A wrist shot from Karl Alzner that he sent into heavy net-front traffic halfway through the first period resulted in Alex Belzile picking up the loose puck and tucking it in behind Kasimir Kaskisuo for his fourth of the season, giving the visitors a 1-0 lead over the defending Calder Cup champions early in the game. Though Jeremy Bracco would even the score for Toronto two minutes later after one-timing a perfect pass from Calle Rosen behind Michael McNiven, Joël Bouchard's players finished the period ahead by a goal as Jake Evans netted his eighth of the season while on the powerplay to make it 2-1.

Byron Froese added to Laval's lead early in the second period with a wrist shot that trickled under the blocker of Toronto's netminder, who turned away 15 of Laval's 19 shots in their loss while McNiven stopped 26 of the 29 shots he faced in the Rocket's victory. Trevor Moore reduced Toronto's deficit to one before they headed into the final frame however with his 12th of the season, which also came on the powerplay.

A plethora of penalties were given in the final 20 minutes and though Laval's penalty kill maintained their team's lead throughout, they were unable to prevent Toronto from scoring the equalizer with a little over a minute left in the game. With Després in the box and Kaskisuo on the bench, the Marlies had a 6-on-4 on which Chris Mueller netted his 11th of the season.

However, the tides turned on the Marlies in overtime as Jordan Subban took a penalty, allowing Després to score his first as a member of the Rocket to give his team the victory.

"We played yesterday and had a difficult loss, but to turn around and do four hours on the road the next day to play a team that didn't play the day before... I find we came out alert," said Bouchard of his team's performance after the game. "It's not easy to come back from games like yesterday, so we showed a lot of character [today]."

Goalscorers:

LAV: Belzile (McCarron, Alain) | Evans (Audette) | Froese | Despres (Belzile, Shinkaruk)

TOR: Bracco (Rosen, LoVerde) | Moore (Bracco, Mueller) | Mueller (Bracco, Gagner)

Goaltenders:

LAV: McNiven (26/29) | TOR: Kaskisuo (15/19)

Rocket Powerplay: 2/6 | Rocket Penalty Kill: 3/5

Three Stars: 1. Simon Després - LAV | 2. Jeremy Bracco - TOR | 3. Alex Belzile - LAV

Check out the Laval Rocket Statistics



American Hockey League Stories from December 8, 2018


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central