QUEBEC CITY, P.Q. — Quebec scored four times on ten shots in the third period leading the Remparts to a 5-4 win over the Rimouski Oceanics. Mirko Hoefflin scored what became the game winning goal in front of 10635 fans.
Trailing by three (4-1) after two periods of play Quebec played with more cohesion in the third period to complete another come back giving their head coach his 250th victory.
“It’s funny, sometimes when things can turn around. Like I told the guys after two periods I wasn’t disappointed. We went through tough times we needed to stay confident, to play as a team. Nothing will happen if you let it go, but you continue to work hard good things can happened,” Roy said. “I found that we dominated against a team that played perfectly. Their goaltender played very well I thought we could have some power plays but again his goaltender was very good. We put lots of traffics in front of him in the third and things turned in our favor.”
Photo by Serge Poulin
After seeing both goaltenders, Louis Domingue (Quebec) and Carl Hozjan (Rimouski) make several good saves in the opening period, Quebec opened the scoring with the 21st of the season by Remparts right winger Tomas Filippi at 14:26.
Rimouski replied less than two minutes later with Etienne Boutet redirecting a shot from Alex Belzile.
Rimouski scored three times in the second against Domingue who saw his night between the pipes end after forty minutes conceding four goals on 33 shots. Roy sent backup netminder Jimmy Appleby to open the third period.
Was it a question of confidence? Do the players seem more confident with Appleby in net? The question hasn’t been asked to Quebec head coach Roy.
“Louis went through tough times, he needed to continue to work hard. He was really hard on himself in the loss against Saint John and we hoped to see him play better tonight,” Roy said. “Sometime the goaltending position is a position of confidence, presently the confidence doesn’t seem to the there, we will give the chance to Jimmy (Appleby) to play some games and maybe it will lift some pressure over Louis’s shoulders. We will give sometime to Louis to think about him and be ready when he will be back in the net.” Roy said trying to explain why he decided to pull his starting netminder to begin the third period.
Alex Emond made it a 3-1 lead for the Oceanic when his shot from the slot beat Domingue high on his left side at 11:14 in the second period. Oceanic Captain Felix Lefrancois made it 4-1 with his 22nd of the year with less than two minutes remaining in the third.
But as has become a Quebec trademark lately the Remparts made a comeback scoring four times against Hozjan to complete the effort and
Photo by Serge Poulin
Axel Rioux began Quebec comeback with his eighth of the year deflecting a shot from defenseman Martin Lefebvre from the blue line with only 1:21 gone in the third. Rookie defenseman Ryan Culkin saw his shot also from the blueline find its way behind Rimouski goaltender reducing the visitor leads to one goal.
“Yes it was a great surprise,” said Rioux who earned the first star of the game. “We didn’t play the way we wanted in the first two periods, between the second and third we talked between ourselves and decide to play as a team and it paid off tonight. We dominated 33- 20 in shots on goal after two, the other goalie did the job on the other side but it wasn’t too hard for him in the first two periods. We drive the puck to the net in third trying to take the rebound and it worked for us. We will have to work sixty minutes, a hockey game is sixty minutes not just twenty.”
Grenier, with his fifth of the year, brought both teams back to square one trying the score 4-4 completing a great pass from Joe Dube at 17:11.
And Mirko Hoefflin completed the rally scoring Quebec’s fifth goal with less than two minutes remaining in the game.
For his part, the Oceanics head coach, Clement Jodoin, didn’t seem disappointed after the game. “Carl Hozjan made the saves in the first two periods. Learning to win isn’t playing for his point,” said Jodoin.
“It’s frustrating we didn’t have any reason to panic, I took our time out the worst thing that could happened to us is to lose but even if you have only two minutes remaining in the game it wasn’t lots of time to play. For me it was our mental mistakes that cost us the game we could control it easily.”
Quebec will return to action this Friday January 28 hosting the Acadie-Bathurst Titans.
Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com
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