Rocket Weekly: Struggles in Cleveland
While they added an NHL goalie in Samuel Montembeault, Laval was still down effectively their entire front line for their games in Cleveland. That lack of firepower was costly as the Rocket dropped both games.
The Week That Was
Dec. 18: Cleveland 5, Laval 2 – Despite only having nine shots on goal through the first two periods, Laval stayed within striking distance and even found themselves tied in the third when Tyler Thorpe scored six minutes in. However, things fell apart from there with the Monsters scoring three goals on six shots in the final frame (including an empty-netter) to pull away for the win.
Dec. 20: Cleveland 2, Laval 0 – After a rough first game, Montembeault was much better with only one shot beating him, that coming on the power play from Luca Pinelli. But again, an extremely weakened offence was an issue. Laval had seven shots through 40 minutes and while they were a bit better in the third, they couldn’t get one past Ivan Fedotov (a goalie who makes more than Montembeault, no less) to give them a shot at a point.
StatPack
Skaters:
| # | Player | GP | G | A | +/- | SOG | PIMS |
| 4 | Tobie Bisson | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 5 | 0 |
| 5 | Nate Clurman | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 1 | 0 |
| 6 | Tyler Thorpe | 2 | 1 | 0 | -1 | 3 | 0 |
| 15 | Sean Farrell | 2 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 3 | 0 |
| 17 | Alex Tuch | 2 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 0 | 5 |
| 19 | Samuel Blais | 2 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 2 | 4 |
| 21 | Riley Kidney | 2 | 0 | 1 | E | 2 | 0 |
| 24 | Israel Mianscum | 2 | 0 | 1 | E | 0 | 0 |
| 25 | Ryan O’Rourke | 1 | 0 | 1 | E | 0 | 2 |
| 26 | Will Dineen | 2 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 0 | 0 |
| 28 | Josh Jacobs | 1 | 0 | 0 | E | 1 | 0 |
| 42 | Lucas Condotta | 2 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 2 | 0 |
| 44 | Josiah Didier | 2 | 0 | 0 | E | 2 | 2 |
| 48 | Filip Mesar | 2 | 0 | 0 | E | 1 | 2 |
| 63 | Florian Xhekaj | 2 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 5 | 6 |
| 64 | David Reinbacher | 2 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 4 | 0 |
| 77 | Joe Dunlap | 2 | 1 | 0 | +1 | 1 | 0 |
| 81 | Xavier Simoneau | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| 84 | William Trudeau | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 4 | 0 |
Goalies:
| # | Player | Record | GAA | SV% | SO |
| 35 | Samuel Montembeault | 0-2-0 | 2.53 | .904 | 0 |
Team Leaders:
Goals: Alex Belzile (12)
Assists: Laurent Dauphin (21)
Points: Laurent Dauphin (31)
+/-: Laurent Dauphin (+21)
PIMS: Florian Xhekaj (67)
Shots: Belzile/Dauphin (66)
News and Notes
– With Samuel Montembeault being sent down, Laval, in turn, assigned Hunter Jones back to Trois-Rivieres. Montembeault remains eligible to play this weekend if the Habs want to keep him down longer.
– Joshua Roy, Laurent Dauphin, and Alex Belzile have now served their suspensions and are eligible to play in Laval’s next game. Accordingly, Riley Kidney and Israel Mianscum were also sent down to Trois-Rivieres. (Games may not be played at that level, however, with the players set to strike starting on Boxing Day.)
– Jared Davidson was sent back to Laval following the Phillip Danault trade. Meanwhile, Samuel Blais was recalled following the injury to Jake Evans.
– While Montreal could have sent some players down during the holiday break to get out of LTIR temporarily, they elected not to do so as those players would have had to play for the Rocket before being recall-eligible again.
Last Game’s Lines:
Farrell – Xhekaj – Thorpe
Blais – Condotta – Simoneau
Tuch – Dineen – Mesar
Mianscum – Kidney – Dunlap
Paquette-Bisson – Reinbacher
Trudeau – Didier
Clurman – Jacobs
The Week Ahead
Saturday/Sunday vs Syracuse – After a full week off, Laval gets a tough matchup in the Crunch as the two teams are tied atop the North Division. Jakob Pelletier is tied for the league lead in points (alongside Laurent Dauphin) while newcomer Nick Abruzzese is among the assist leaders league-wide. On top of that, Conor Geekie, a key part of the Mikhail Sergachev trade, is playing at a point-per-game clip. Unsurprisingly, that makes them one of the top-scoring teams in the AHL while Ryan Fanti and Brandon Halverson have platooned their way to being one of the stingier defensive teams in the league.
Final Thought
With the Rocket basically being down an entire line due to suspension while also missing Owen Beck on recall, I was curious to see how the remaining top-six players would fare. More specifically, since the lines are often shifted, there’s really only one player that would qualify as a top-six regular and that’s Sean Farrell.
On the whole this season, he has done pretty well. Basically, he picked up where he left off from a strong second half in 2024-25 after the first half was basically a disaster. But his production was already starting to taper off before all the other players became ineligible. Now, as the focal point of that line instead of the secondary helper, I wanted to see if he could carry a line.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Farrell did okay against Cleveland and in the circumstances, that’s not bad but the shine is starting to wear off in terms of prospect status. He’s already 24 and if he can’t be a driver of play in the minors at this point, it doesn’t look good for his NHL aspirations. Don’t get me wrong, a two-game sample size isn’t going to make or break his chances but he had a chance to send a message to Montreal’s management that he should be the next one to get a look. He didn’t play well enough to do that so he’s going to look back at this as an opportunity squandered.