Acadie-Bathurst win in Victoriaville

QUEBEC CITY, P.Q. —Winning the first two games at home, Acadie-Bathurst came into Victoriaville confident of playing solid game. After seeing Victoriaville drawing first blood in game three the visitor scored two goals, one in second the other in the third, to win game three 2-1.

“Defensively I’m happy to see how we played the game,” answered Acadie Bathurst head coach Marion Pouliot. “We block the middle very well in the game maybe excepted for last two minutes of the third periods. We have had some opportunity of icing our territory but we didn’t. We weren’t aggressive enough on the player who got the puck. But we battle hard to preserve our lead, Fitzgerald made the great save especially on two breakaway in third periods. He also made another big save on turnover on a power play and give us the chance to score the goal that gave us the victory.” Continued Pouliot.

On Victoriaville side, head coach Louis Robitaille admitted his team played great in first period.

“We played very well in first period, in second they played better we took three penalties one of four minutes, undisciplined prevented us of our momentum. Unfortunately Murphy scored on Grise penalty on an accidental contact outside of goalie crease. Even after all this adversity the score was 1-1 after two periods. We never give up, we never stop to compete.”

“In third periods we shots 12 times we were involved, they got good group of defensemen, they put lots of pressure in our zone. We have to manage the puck little better, like we did in first period. When you look the last shift the one of Harwell he pass one minute in half in their zone. We didn’t complicate our life, we kept the puck, we got time possession, we made them broke the coverage in defensive zone. You can’t shoot the puck everywhere cause they are very fast to in launching the offense. That is what we will have to do tomorrow.” Ended Tigres head coach Robitaille.

Vincent Lenoue opened the scoring for Victoriaville 10:42 into first period. Simon Lafrance and Maxime Comtois got the assist.

Going 0-in-3 on their power plays the Acadie-Bathurst tied the game1-1 on their fourth chance. As first shot by Ethan Crossman been block my Etienne Montpetit the rebound taken by Liam Murphy beat Victoriaville netminder between his pads at 9:07 of middle frame.

Acadie-Bathurst gained the lead on a goal by Ethan Moreau who saw his shot been redirect inadvertently by a Victoriaville players before going in at 16:21 of the third period.

Game four of Acadie-Bathurst semifinal will be on Wednesday.

QMJHL other semifinal round was schedule for tonight

Blainville-Boisbriand 2 vs. Charlottetown 3 (first overtime) (Blainville-Boisbriand still lead series 2-1)

Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com