QUEBEC CITY, P.Q. — A goal by Nicolas Chouinard exactly at 3:00 into third period leads the Screaming Eagles to 3-2 victory over the Quebec Remparts making the 4,576 fans happy one leaving the centre 200. How many times have you heard someone saying the most important game in best-of-seven series is the game number one, three, five and seventh? After surprising the Remparts by taking a 2-0 lead in that series both teams travel to Cape Breton giving almost no chance to Quebec to come back in this series.
A superb performance by veteran netminder Charles Lavigne in next two games helped his team to tie the series 2-2. After losing game four the Screaming Eagles didn’t have choice to come out strong and try to regain the lead in important game five.
Quebec began the game getting good scoring opportunity forcing Cape Breton goaltender Olivier Roy to make key saves to prevent his team to trail after the first twenty minutes. A penalty to Frederick Roy gave first opportunity to Cape Breton to send their power play unit on the ice but a penalty to Jan Piskasek cut short Cape Breton power play opportunity playing last 40 second four-on-four.
Consecutive penalties to Joey Haddad (elbowing 5:48) (hooking 8:18) forced Cape Breton netminder to be vigilant keeping the score 0-0.
If Quebec got little advantage in first portion of first period the Screaming Eagle opened the scoring in second period when Francis Meilleur beat Charles Lavigne at 7:18. Quebec came back 3:12 minutes later to tie the game during a penalty to Cape Breton forward Nick MacNeil (8:58). Mikhail Stefanovich wrist shot didn’t gave any chance to Cape Breton netminder seeing the puck beating him on his right side at 10:30.
Quebec goaltender continued to play key role for the visiting team making three important saves against Brad Tesink who tip a shot from Cape Breton defenseman Meilleur on first occasion, and consecutive saves this time again against Tesink and Nicola Chouinard keeping the score at once all.
On the other end Screaming Eagles goaltender Roy stop Remparts center Kelsey Tessier almost on break away on what was the best Quebec scoring chances of the second tier. With the score 1-1 both teams played real thigh game nobody want to make the mistake that could give a goal that could make the difference in the game. After 40 minutes Cape Breton shoot 19 times on Lavigne, Quebec got 18 on Roy.
Cape Breton came out of dressing room for the third period shooting from everywhere scoring next two goals, first one after only 23 seconds. Joey Haddad with his eighth of present series unassisted gave 2-1 lead to the Screaming Eagles.
Nicolas Chouinard gave a two goals lead to Cape Breton for the first time in the game when his one timer didn’t gave any chance to Remparts netminder beating Lavigne on what became later the game-winning-goal at 3:00 minutes mark in third period.
Frederick Roy with a man advantage during a penalty to Screaming Eagles defenseman Jan Piskacek (7:39) cut Cape Breton lead to only one at 8:50, but Cape Breton was able to keep and protect that lead until horn sound announced the end of the game.
Shots on goal by Quebec 22, Cape Breton 34
Power plays Quebec 2-6 Cape Breton 1-7
Three stars of the game: 1-Joey Haddad (CAP) 2-Olivier Roy (CAP) 3-Mathieu Brodeur (CAP)
Rimouski Oceanics 1 vs. Moncton Wildcats 0
( Rimouski won the series 4-1)
Shawinigan Cataractes 5 vs. Gatineau Olympiques 2
( Shawinigan won the series 4-1)
Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com
Related
You must be logged in to post a comment.