QUEBEC CITY P.Q. — With a record of (9-1-0-0) in their last ten games the Drummondville Voltigeurs played without a doubt are playing their best hockey. Ranked first in the Telus Central Division and third in the overall rakings with 86 points, the team coached by Mario Duhamel, continues to win important games and are still in race with the Moncton Wildcats for the second place behind the Saint John Sea Dogs who have 97 points (first overall), Moncton 87 (second) and Drummondville 86 (third) with same number of games played 59.
Back on January 31st the Voltigeurs played against the Lewiston MAINEiacs defeating them by the score of 3-1. Drummondville scored three goals on 46 shots against the first stars of the game Lewiston goaltender Adrien Lemay. Jake Allen faced only 16 shots allowing only one goal.
Drummondville only loss during that sequence came at the hands of the Victoriaville Tigres on February 5th. The Voltigeurs lost 5-2 and could have been costly since it was an intra-divisional confrontation. Fortunately for Mario Duhamel’s team that wasn’t the case. Joel Champagne led Tigres offense with two goals in the game.
Two other players ended the game with two points (assists), defenseman Emmanuel Boudreau and center Travis McIsaac. Both goaltenders were very busy with Kevin Poulin of Victoriaville faces 43 shots making 41 saves and Jake Allen faced 38 making 33 saves.
The Montreal Junior came into Drummondville territory on February 6th with Jake Allen facing his former teammates since being traded after the World Junior Championships. Four different players lit the lamp behind Montreal netminder Jean-Francois Berube in Drummondville’s 4-1 win.
Gabriel Dumont and Jonathan Brunelle scored for the home team while Ondrej Palat and Benoit Levesque completed the scoring. Trevor Parkes scored the only for the Montreal Junior, preventing Allen’s chance to shutout his former team. Drummondville dominated in the shots on goal department 42-28.
Another important confrontation awaited Duhamel’s team three days later. This time Drummondville went into Bionet Center in Shawinigan to face the Cataractes in another intra-divisional match-up.
Captain Marc-Olivier Vachon took Voltigeurs offense in his hands with two goals scoring first two Drummondville goals, others Voltigeurs goals came from the stick of Ondrej Palat and Philippe Lefebvre (third period). Shawinigan only goal in the game came from center David Labrecque. Another solid performance by Drummondville goaltender Jake Allen making 26 saves out of 27 shots. Marc-Antoine Gelinas made 29 saves on 33 shots.
On February 12th, Baie-Comeau came to Marcel Dionne center to face the Voltigeurs. Gabriel Dumont and Benoit Levesque with respectively three and two goals each were the offensive leaders in one sided 8-1 victory. Alexandre Contois, Jonathan Brunelle and Benjamin Larabie completed Drummondville offensive.
Marc-Olivier Minard was the only goal scorer for Stepan Hains team. Three of eight Voltigeurs goals were scored with a man advantage, the Drakkar was 0-4 attempts in power plays. Drummondville dominated in shots on goal 48-25. Jake Allen Drummondville and Nathan Dunnett Baie-Comeau were in goal for their respective teams.
Rouyn-Noranda Huskies came in Drummondville on February 13 to play against the Voltigeurs. In a hard fought battle Drummondville needed to go to shootout to finally won 3-2 over the Huskies. Nicholas Champion for Rouyn-Noranda and Jake Allen for Drummondville made several key saves at important moment in the game to force the overtime and the shootout.
Jonathan Brunelle beat the Huskies netminder with Voltigeurs fifth shot before finding a winner in that game. Jerome Gauthier Leduc and Jean-Sebastien Berube scored Rouyn-Noranda’s goal, Gabriel Dumont and Jonathan Brunelle scored goals for Drummondville. Brunelle made the difference in shootout helping his team to win the game. Teams scored in first and third period to end 2-2 after 60 minutes of play.
The February 17th contest meant a lot for Drummondville, not just because it was their chance to get their revenge against Victoriaville Tigres but it also was the third intra-divisional games inside last nine games, and the second one against arch-rival. This time the Voltigeurs came out on top winning 4-2. This game was a very important game also in the overall ranking to stick in the race for the chance to end in second place and get the ice advantage in third series in the upcoming playoff.
Defenseman Marc-Antoine Desmoyer and Christopher DiDominico, for whom it was his first game back from last year when he has had a very serious injury in last year’s playoff. DiDominico ended with three points (1-2). San Couturier got the other Voltigeurs goal. Thomas Kubalik and Joel Champagne were the only Tigres players to put the puck behind Jake Allen making 31 saves out of 33 shots. Kevin Poulin made 33 saves on 37 shots. Drummondville scored two of their eight goals on power plays; Victoriaville scored one of their two goals with a man advantage on two power plays opportunities.
On February 19th, the Quebec Remparts came in Tigres territory with a very signifying game for them. A victory over Drummondville would kept Remparts aspiration to end their regular season in second place overall, losing that game meant for them to forget the second place. Unfortunately for Patrick Roy team, his team was trounced 8-2 by Drummondville.
Gabriel Dumont and Jonathan Brunelle with respectively three and two goals each led Voltigeurs offensive. Philippe Bergeron, Olivier Hotte and Andrew Randazzo with one goal each completed the scoring for the winning team. Dmitry Kugryshev and defenseman Martin Levebvre scored Quebec goals. The Voltigeurs scored two in first, two in second and four in last period totalizing eight on 42 shots on Louis Domingue and Antoine Tardif who came in relief of starting netminder with 7:10 played in third period. Jake Allen made 17 saves on 19 shots by Quebec.
To end that 10 games sequence for Mario Duhamel team, what better then getting another intra-divisional confrontation against your arch-rival, the Victoriaville Tigres but this time in Drummondville territory. Last time the Tigres defeated the Voltigeurs was last February 5th. Victoriaville took 2-0 lead in the opening period on 14 shots against Jake Allen with the second one with a man short scored by Yanni Gourde at 11:17.
Defenseman Emmanuel Boudreau opened the scoring for Yannick Jean’s team at 7:05. Drummondville came back with four unanswered goals in second period. Two of them were scored by defenseman Marc-Antoine Desnoyer (15-16) of the year. Christopher DiDominico (1:12) and Alexandre Contois (12:03) tied the score at two goals each.
Chris Doyle for Victoriaville scored Tigres third and last goal for them for the night, Alexandre Contois with his second of the game closed Voltigeurs offensive for the night with Drummondville eighth goals in the game with less than five minutes remaining in the game.
With nine games left to play before the end of regular season, the fans in Drummondville can certainly be proud of their team and the way they play, because the team lost important players to graduation without talking about last year head coach Guy Boucher who has been hired as new head coach for the Hamilton Bulldogs in the AHL. Mario Duhamel proved to everyone that have some doubt that he can do the job very well.
Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com
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