QUEBEC CITY P.Q. — With their back against the wall, Shawinigan played a much better game in their 4-1 victory against Drummondville Voltigeurs. Three goals in the second period helped the Cataractes to force game six back at Bionest Center on Sunday afternoon.
To win a game teams often need contribution from other players on the team. Michael Bournival a 16-year old scored his first goal of the playoffs and Maxime Macenauer got one goal helping the Cataractes to their second victory of the QMJHL final.
Some people criticized Cataractes head coach Eric Veilleux after game four because his team played poorly. But it was a completely different story in Drummondville where all of his players gave all they had hoping to prevent elimination. Matthiew Pistilli, Cedric McNicoll contributed with two and one assist respectively.
After seeing Shawinigan kill the first two Drummondville power play (one five-on-three), the Voltigeurs opened the scoring on third Cataractes penalty. Mike Hoffman completed great effort from Samson Mahbod and Yannick Riendeau at 11:12 in the opening period, beating Gabriel Girard, who surprisingly had been sent between the pipes to start the game for Eric Veilleux’s team.
Shawinigan began the game playing well, pressing Voltigeurs defensemen shooting the puck deep in the offensive zone, but again, like in game four, they took undisciplined penalties that proved to be costly. Before allowing Voltigeurs power play goal, Shawinigan did well in shorthanded situation giving only 21 goals in 108 opportunities for 85 percent efficiency.
Shawinigan began the second period taking two penalties, first with only 1:32 gone. Cataractes took five penalties in the first 22 minutes of the game. Four of them were undisciplined. Charles-Olivier Roussel tied the game 1-1 on the second power play opportunity in the game. Roussel’s wrist shot beat Drummondville netminder Marco Cousineau low on his glove side at 4:10.
The Cataractes scored the next two goals dominating in all aspects of the game. Shawinigan took the lead for the first time in the game on a two-on-one breakaway. Cataractes right winger and assistant Captain Pistilli made great pass to Bournival who went on his backhand to beat Cousineau between his pads at 8:58.
Macenauer picked the puck from Drummondville defenseman Dmitry Kulikov on aa shorthanded situation beating the Drummondville goaltender on his glove side with a backhand shot 1:18 later. The Cataractes scored their first three goals on just 14 shots. Drummondville scored only once on first 16 shots.
Philippe Paradis completed the scoring for Shawinigan on a power play with the fourth Cataractes goal in the game with less than four minutes to go in third period.
For Drummondville nothing seemed to work for them in front of their fans. Contrary to the regular season everything was harder. Even when they had good scoring chance in the game young Shawinigan netminder Girard made key saves on veteran players like Riendeau.
Nothing worked for the Voltigeurs.
“It was like game number two for us, we were unable to execute at all,” was the first Drummondville head coach Guy Boucher comments after the game at his post game press conference.
“Honestly I think the players really wanted to end the series here in front of their fans. It wasn’t time to be fancy to give a show it’s time to play a simple game to play efficiently. We didn’t have our speed tonight, it wasn’t because they didn’t want to work, because after the first 12 seconds I saw them on the bench they run after their breath this is directly related to nervousness, we wanted too much. We will have to refocus like we did after second game.
“Nothing worked for us tonight and it began with our five-on-three at the beginning of the game. We did exactly the contraire of what we should do. I thought after the first period we could come back in the game, we gave them three goals. The first one was our player who steps on the ice thinking his teammates step out; the other two was on breakaway. You can’t do that in semifinal.” Boucher said.
Next game will be Sunday afternoon 16:00 in Shawinigan.
Shots on goal by: Shawinigan 27 Drummondville 32
Power play for: Shawinigan 2-5 Drummondville 1-9
Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com
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