QUEBEC CITY P.Q. — A goal scored by Screaming Eagles left winger Robert Slaney at 12:57 of fourth overtime period gave Cape Breton a 3-2 win and take a 1-0 lead in their series against the Quebec Remparts. Both teams had several chances to end the first contest during the first three periods of overtime, but the puck either hit the post or the goaltenders made the saves. For the first time, maybe in the history the QMJHL playoffs, one team was able to play 60 minutes without either referee assessing a penalty to the home team. Winning one of the first two games of a playoff series is always the goal of a team that begins their series on the road. That’s exactly what Cape Breton did in the wee hours of the night since the game began on Friday night but ended on Saturday morning. By winning the first one on the road, Cape Breton now puts all of the pressure of winning the next one on the shoulders of the Quebec Remparts on Sunday afternoon. “Winning this first game is a plus for us because the pressure will be on them to win the next game,” said Screaming Eagles Head Coach Mario Durocher. “I think the momentum is with the team that won the game. As the visiting team you always want to win one of the first two games on the road, by winning the first one the momentum is with the winning team and that puts the pressure on the other team to win the next one. But the momentum can switch back if they win the next game or win two in our building, so the pressure can come back to us so we should be careful.” The most important thing for Cape Breton in this first confrontation has certainly been to keep their focus to the game. “The most important thing for us was to keep our focus on the game, that our guys stay focus to what they had to do and not to be distracted by things around them. Lots of people talked about Pat (Patrick Roy) who talked about our goaltender Olivier Roy (not related to Quebec head coach), we already advised our players about it, the crowd playing in front of 15,000 fans. So what we asked to the guys is to stay concentrated and get a good first period.” said Durocher. Getting a good first period is exactly what the Screaming Eagles did shooting 13 times on Quebec netminder Charles Lavigne, compared to 8 for the Remparts. Another aspect of the game that played an important role in Game 1 was that Cape Breton played physical, completing each check every chance they could get. In their Friday edition of the Cape Breton Post newspaper, Durocher mentioned they would like to match the Remparts skill with toughness. “Look, the difference in our case is we are big and we can skate. If we didn’t have a skating team and simply was big it wouldn’t work,” said Durocher. “We have to use our speed. I think longer the series will be, the better will be our chances with our big guys. They have pure talent on the other side; guys like Kugryshev (Dmitry) and Stefanovich (Michail) got what we call a pro shot.” Going into the series some hockey experts felt Cape Breton should be taken seriously and the result of this first game tended to prove it. “I think we proved it since the holiday time. I have great confidence in my team and my players are confident too. We played against everyone, and the only team that beat us twice was Drummondville. We won against Shawinigan. After the holidays we beat team like Gatineau and Chicoutimi. We are very confident that we can play against everyone.” Durocher said after the game. The Cape Breton opened the scoring when Taylor McDougall wrist shot found his way to the net just over Quebec netminder Charles Lavigne right shoulder at 5:29 in the opening period. Consecutive penalties to Cape Breton forwards Scott Horyl (Delay of game 8:51) and Michael Stinziani (goalie interference 9:09) lead to Quebec’s tying goal by John Audy Marshessault at 9:52. Cape Breton regained the lead 39 seconds into the middle frame on a snap shot by Pittsburgh Penguin property Joey Haddad, beating the Quebec netminder over his shoulder, glove side. Quebec took only 20 seconds after the penalty to Brad Tesink (hooking 1:19) to tie the game at two when Mikhail Stefanovich beat Roy after a second effort pushed the puck on his backhand while being down on the ice 1:34 into second period. Neither team was able to get the puck behind the opponent goaltenders in the third period leading both teams to overtime. Teams exchange scoring chances in next three extra periods until the game winning goal was scored by Slaney at 12:57 of the fourth overtime For Quebec Head Coach Patrick Roy, he began is post game press conference by saying, “I think the fans appreciated the show but as far as I’m concerned I must say that our forwards didn’t do much, Honestly if we want to go through Cape Breton, we have to expect much more from our forwards than what they gave us tonight. When I think about giving us more, I mean I should expect more from Breault’s (Benjamin) line. They were completely dominated by the line of Culligan (Joey) in the five-on-five situation. For me it’s unacceptable.” “We have two choices, whether we work much harder or we look for excuses for losing the game. We can’t score more than two goals if we didn’t go in front of their goaltender. If we didn’t drive to the net, we didn’t take quality shots. Our defensemen and goaltender were exceptional. It was the reason why the game was so long.” Continued Roy in the wee hours of the night. In the other QMJHL series, Rimouski Oceanic won 2-1 over Moncton, Shawinigan got a 4-3 win over the Gatineau Olympiques, and the Drummondville Voltigeurs won 7-1 over the Montreal Junior. All of the winning teams now lead 1- 0 in their respective series. Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com
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