Rocket Weekly: A Small Setback
Home ice wasn’t too kind to Laval last week as they lost a pair of divisional games. However, they were able to still salvage something out of the week as they picked up a victory to kick off their second five-game road trip of the month.
The Week That Was
Nov. 20: Rochester 2, Laval 1 (OT) – Standings-wise, the Amerks are a middle-of-the-pack team. But they know how to play the Rocket tough. This was yet another example of it as Jakub Dobes was more or less the only reason Laval got a point out of the game, turning aside 37 shots. Florian Xhekaj had the lone goal for the Rocket, a shorthanded marker.
Nov. 22: Belleville 4, Laval 2 – Things were looking up for Laval early on after Brandon Gignac and Adam Engstrom both scored in the first half of the first period. But after the buzzer sounded to end that frame, the Senators really took over from there, limiting the Rocket to just ten shots the rest of the way. Meanwhile, it was Belleville’s depth players who stepped up for them with Jamieson Rees and Wyatte Wylie scoring their first goals of the season, the latter standing as the winner.
Nov. 23: Laval 3, Belleville 1 – This time, the Rocket got off to a strong start and sustained it for the majority of the game. Offensively, Joshua Roy led the way with three points, snapping a four-game pointless streak and a seven-game goal drought in the process. The rest of the scoring was supplied off the stick of Jared Davidson who added a pair of goals in the second period.
StatPack
Skaters:
| # | Player | GP | G | A | +/- | SOG | PIMS |
| 5 | Gustav Lindstrom | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 1 | 2 |
| 10 | Joshua Roy | 3 | 1 | 2 | +1 | 10 | 0 |
| 11 | Rafael Harvey-Pinard | 3 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 4 | 0 |
| 12 | Alex Barre-Boulet | 1 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 2 | 0 |
| 15 | Sean Farrell | 3 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 4 | 0 |
| 16 | Alex Beaucage | 1 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 2 | 2 |
| 17 | Luke Tuch | 3 | 1 | 0 | -1 | 8 | 2 |
| 18 | Vincent Arseneau | 3 | 0 | 0 | E | 5 | 12 |
| 21 | Riley Kidney | 3 | 0 | 0 | E | 5 | 0 |
| 23 | Tyler Wotherspoon | 3 | 0 | 1 | +1 | 1 | 0 |
| 24 | Logan Mailloux | 3 | 0 | 1 | -2 | 5 | 4 |
| 27 | Laurent Dauphin | 2 | 0 | 1 | +1 | 3 | 2 |
| 28 | Josh Jacobs | 2 | 0 | 0 | E | 2 | 2 |
| 34 | Jacob Perreault | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 2 | 4 |
| 37 | Brandon Gignac | 2 | 1 | 0 | -4 | 3 | 0 |
| 49 | Jared Davidson | 3 | 2 | 1 | E | 5 | 5 |
| 56 | Adam Engstrom | 3 | 1 | 0 | E | 10 | 2 |
| 62 | Owen Beck | 3 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 6 | 0 |
| 63 | Florian Xhekaj | 3 | 1 | 0 | +1 | 5 | 11 |
| 65 | Zack Hayes | 2 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 0 |
| 81 | Xavier Simoneau | 3 | 0 | 1 | +1 | 3 | 0 |
| 84 | William Trudeau | 3 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 5 | 6 |
Goalies:
| # | Player | Record | GAA | SV% | SO |
| 31 | Connor Hughes | 0-1-0 | 3.12 | .889 | 0 |
| 71 | Jakub Dobes | 1-1-0 | 1.45 | .948 | 0 |
Team Leaders:
Goals: Davidson/Roy (8)
Assists: Barre-Boulet/Beck/Mailloux (9)
Points: Joshua Roy (16)
+/-: Xavier Simoneau (+9)
PIMS: Florian Xhekaj (33)
Shots: Joshua Roy (58)
News and Notes
– Early in the week, it was announced that rookie winger Luke Tuch is dealing with an upper-body injury that requires further medical evaluation. No timetable is in place for when he might return.
– They didn’t have great injury luck in the games either. Alex Barre-Boulet suffered an upper-body injury against Rochester while Brandon Gignac exited the first Belleville game early with a lower-body injury. Even with Rafael Harvey-Pinard on assignment from Montreal, they ended the week with only 12 healthy forwards. Accordingly, Jakov Novak was recalled from ECHL Trois-Rivieres.
– Going back to last season, Riley Kidney has scored just once in his last 27 games and has just eight tallies in 80 career AHL appearances.
– On Monday, the Habs recalled Joshua Roy from Laval while re-assigning Lucas Condotta to the Rocket.
Last Game’s Lines
Davidson – Dauphin – Roy
Harvey-Pinard – Beck – Farrell
Simoneau – Kidney – Perreault
Arseneau – Xhekaj – Beaucage
Wotherspoon – Mailloux
Trudeau – Engstrom
Hayes – Jacobs
The Week Ahead
Wednesday at Hershey – With Laval faltering this past week, the Bears surpassed them atop the AHL standings so it’s an early-season best versus best matchup. Hershey is the top-scoring team in the East, led by Ethen Frank who already has a dozen goals. The Rocket will catch a break as Hershey’s second-best scorer, Ivan Miroschnichenko, was recalled recently by Washington. Veteran blueliner Ethan Bear is off to a good start after putting up 11 points in his first 17 games after clearing waivers in training camp.
Friday at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton – The Penguins have fared a bit better than their NHL counterparts thus far and sit tied for second in the Atlantic, though that was partly aided by a strong showing from Tristan Jarry earlier on while he was on a conditioning stint. They don’t score a lot but they enter the week with the fewest goals allowed of any team in the AHL.
Saturday at Lehigh Valley – The Phantoms are starting to run out of goalies. Alexsey Kolosov was recalled to the big club late last month while Eetu Makiniemi is out long term. They still have Cal Petersen but the veteran has a save percentage of just .888 so far. Offensively, former Rocket winger Anthony Richard has nine points in his first seven games and was recently re-assigned by the Flyers to give their attack a shot in the arm.
Final Thought
The Habs were able to get permission from the NHL to extend Rafael Harvey-Pinard’s conditioning stint by two more games. After that, there are no further extensions allowable; it’s either keep the player on LTIR or activate him. Harvey-Pinard’s play has been inconsistent in his first three games which, in fairness, is to be expected. But there’s a lot at stake for him when he plays against the Bears and Penguins.
Last season, Harvey-Pinard didn’t play well at all. Injuries kept him in the lineup but he didn’t exactly make a case to have a guaranteed roster spot before suffering an offseason injury that has kept him out so far. With Patrik Laine nearing a return and Emil Heineman making more of an impact than Harvey-Pinard did in a similar role last season, I don’t really see a spot for Harvey-Pinard on the roster when the Habs are forced to make a decision on him. That will come on Saturday but could technically be pushed back slightly until Laine returns which shouldn’t be much longer after that.
Barring either Harvey-Pinard having a breakout effort these next two games or the Habs getting injuries up front, it feels like he could be landing on waivers before too long. And with a $1.1 million cap hit ($1 million salary), he’s hardly a guarantee to be claimed. But it’s time for Harvey-Pinard to showcase himself, not just to Montreal but to the rest of the league as well. It’ll be interesting to see how he fares.