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Coming out of the All-Star break, Laval kept its winning streak intact as they went into Toronto for a pair of games and came out with two more wins to sit atop the AHL standings.

The Week That Was

Feb. 7: Laval 5, Toronto 2 – It has been a rough sophomore season for Sean Farrell who has been a healthy scratch several times.  But injuries have given him a chance to play in an offensive role and he made the most of it in this one, picking up a hat trick and making it his second straight game with more than one goal (his first two ever such games in the AHL).  That was all the support Cayden Primeau needed to extend his streak to ten straight wins while Lucas Condotta finally put one in the goal column as the captain potted the empty netter.

Feb. 8: Laval 3, Toronto 2 (SO) – The Rocket had the lead twice in this game following goals from Florian Xhekaj and Rafael Harvey-Pinard but they couldn’t hold onto it for long as Toronto twice tied it within around six minutes.  From there, Laval survived a barrage of penalty trouble (the power plays were 7-1 for the Marlies who had a late power play in the third and another in overtime) to force a shootout where the visitors scored twice while Connor Hughes kicked aside Toronto’s two shots.

StatPack

Skaters:

# Player GP G A +/- SOG PIMS
2 Noel Hoefenmayer 2 0 1 -1 1 0
5 Gustav Lindstrom 2 0 0 +3 5 2
7 Chris Jandric 1 0 0 E 0 0
10 Joshua Roy 2 0 0 E 3 0
11 Rafael Harvey-Pinard 2 1 1 E 2 0
12 Alex Barre-Boulet 2 0 0 E 4 2
15 Sean Farrell 2 3 0 +2 6 0
16 Alex Beaucage 1 0 0 E 2 0
17 Luke Tuch 1 0 0 E 0 0
18 Vincent Arseneau 1 0 1 +1 1 5
21 Riley Kidney 2 0 1 E 1 2
23 Tyler Wotherspoon 2 0 0 +3 1 0
27 Laurent Dauphin 2 0 0 E 8 4
42 Lucas Condotta 2 1 1 E 2 0
48 Filip Mesar 2 0 0 +1 2 4
49 Jared Davidson 2 1 1 +1 2 5
56 Adam Engstrom 2 0 1 E 1 2
63 Florian Xhekaj 2 1 1 +3 6 7
65 Zack Hayes 2 0 1 +1 2 5
84 William Trudeau 2 0 0 +1 1 4

Goalies:

# Player Record GAA SV% SO
30 Cayden Primeau 1-0-0 2.00 .923 0
31 Connor Hughes 1-0-0 1.85 .938 0

Shootout – Skaters:

# Player G/ATT
10 Joshua Roy 1/1
49 Jared Davidson 1/1

Shootout – Goalies:

# Player SVS/SF
31 Connor Hughes 2/2

Team Leaders:

Goals: Jared Davidson (16)
Assists: Alex Barre-Boulet (25)
Points: Alex Barre-Boulet (35)
+/-: Jared Davidson (+21)
PIMS: Florian Xhekaj (93)
Shots: Joshua Roy (129)

News and Notes

– Laval got some good news on the injury front as Joshua Roy returned a little earlier than expected.  He was supposed to miss four to six weeks with an upper-body injury but came back in three.

– There was some bad news injury-wise, however, as wingers Luke Tuch and Vincent Arseneau left Friday’s game early and didn’t suit up the following afternoon.

– Defenceman Chris Jandric and winger Alex Beaucage were recalled from ECHL Trois-Rivieres.  With those moves, the Rocket could still only dress 11 forwards for the rematch.

– They did get some help from the Habs after, however, with Logan Mailloux and Owen Beck being sent back down to play during the 4 Nations break.

Last Game’s Lines

Farrell – Dauphin – Barre-Boulet
Harvey-Pinard – Condotta – Roy
Davidson – Xhekaj – Mesar
Kidney – Beaucage

Hoefenmayer – Engstrom
Wotherspoon – Lindstrom
Hayes – Trudeau

The Week Ahead

Wednesday at Belleville – While the Senators sit second-last in the division, they’ve given Laval some challenges this season.  Of their five matchups (of which Laval has won three), one team has scored more than three goals just once while three have been one-goal outings.  Veteran Sam Gagner recently signed a PTO deal with them as he looks to try to get a recall with Ottawa (or someone else) around the trade deadline; he has three assists through seven games so far.

Sunday at Rochester – The Amerks have won their last five games to largely keep pace with the Rocket for the top spot in the North Division.  The two teams have split the season series thus far with two wins apiece, one each coming in extra time.  Devon Levi has helped give Rochester steady goaltending while prospect Isak Rosen leads the way offensively.  Former Hab Kale Clague is having a nice year with nine goals and 18 assists in 44 games, landing him in the top five in team scoring.

Final Thought

While Logan Mailloux and Owen Beck were returned to Laval for the 4 Nations break, there was a third player that I was expecting to be sent down as well, goaltender Jakub Dobes.  Things haven’t been great for him lately in Montreal and having a goalie sit for two-plus weeks midseason is never ideal.

Part of me wonders if the hold-up in sending him down was figuring out who to recall (teams must have two healthy goalies on the roster even during the break).  Merit-wise, it was clearly Cayden Primeau who has been stellar since joining Laval.  But the Habs probably don’t want to mess with a good thing with him on a roll, nor do they probably want to start chipping away at Primeau’s waiver-exempt days when there aren’t any games going on.

Knowing that, I thought they’d give Connor Hughes the paper promotion.  He hasn’t played much lately so rewarding him with some NHL money for a week and a half would probably have gone over well, especially since they may want to re-sign him in free agency this summer.  But not all teams want to give a lesser netminder a financial reward in a situation like this either.

The way Primeau is playing, the goal is probably to keep giving him the bulk of the games.  But it would have been nice to see Dobes get a game or two in as well to keep him active and maybe give him a quick reset before resuming NHL play later this month.  It’s not a big deal either way but with not much going on beyond Laval simply winning, it was worth a mention.