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Laval’s two-week road trip came to an end last week with a pair of games against division rivals.  They took care of business in both of them, securing themselves the North Division title in the process.

The Week That Was

Apr. 11: Laval 4, Rochester 2 – In a battle between the top teams in the North, one team came to play and one didn’t.  The bad news is that the Rocket was the one that didn’t but Cayden Primeau certainly did as he made a season-high 40 saves while Devon Levi had an off-night at the other end.  Laval scored twice in the second period to erase an early deficit while Noel Hoefenmayer and Jared Davidson scored in the third to secure the win.

Apr. 12: Laval 2, Syracuse 1 – The Rocket gave Jacob Fowler some early support in his pro debut, scoring twice in the first period with the tallies coming from some unlikely sources in Riley Kidney and Lucas Condotta.  However, that’s all the scoring they could muster up but Fowler was quite sharp to get his first AHL victory.

StatPack

Skaters:

Goalies:

Team Leaders:

Goals: Laurent Dauphin (26)
Assists: Alex Barre-Boulet (40)
Points: Alex Barre-Boulet (61)
+/-: Laurent Dauphin (+24)
PIMS: Florian Xhekaj (163)
Shots: Alex Barre-Boulet (165)

News and Notes

– Laval welcomed back Adam Engstrom to the lineup after he missed the first four games of the road trip due to injury.  Meanwhile, David Reinbacher didn’t play again but did travel with the team; it sounds like he could suit up this week.

– However, it wasn’t all good news on the injury front as Vincent Arseneau was injured in Rochester.  There’s no word on the nature of the injury or how long he’ll be out for.

– Laval signed winger Joe Dunlap to a tryout deal for the rest of the season plus a one-way deal for next year.  The 25-year-old played his bonus fifth year at Ohio State this season, notching 22 points in 39 games, matching his career high at the NCAA level.

Last Game’s Lines:

Farrell – Dauphin – Barre-Boulet
Davidson – Condotta – Simoneau
Kidney – Beck – Mesar
Dineen – Xhekaj – Tuch

Wotherspoon – Lindstrom
Hayes – Mailloux
Engstrom – Trudeau

The Week Ahead

Wednesday/Friday vs Belleville, Saturday vs Belleville – It’ll be a playoff-like mini-series of sorts with three games in four nights against the Senators to finish the season.  These will be games with not a lot on the line for the Rocket aside from trying to finish first overall while Belleville will be fighting for their playoff lives.  Veteran Sam Gagner was released from his tryout deal last month when he didn’t secure an NHL contract while they’re currently without leading goal-getter Angus Crookshank although that should change by the weekend.

Final Thought

Heading into the season, hopes were high for Laval but expectations were more in check.  With a younger group coming in and a new coach, it was reasonable to think there would be some growing pains along the way and that the team might start out slow.

But that didn’t happen.  They started better than expected and while they’ve been relying on their goaltending to keep them at the top over the last little while, they’ve managed to stay there.  In a league with a lot of player turnover between injuries and recalls, that’s more impressive than it might seem at first glance. 

Having said that, this recent trend of getting outplayed and outshot is a bit concerning heading into the playoffs when the margin for error is going to be a lot tighter.  Yes, goaltending can carry a team – look no further than Cayden Primeau just a few years ago – but they will need to take advantage of their first-round bye to get some good practices in and try to get back to top form in a hurry.  If they can do that, they should be able to keep playing for a while yet.