Gatineau rout Quebec

photo courtesy of Jonathan L’Heureux of infosportquebec

QUEBEC CITY, P.Q. — Coming out the night before in Sherbrooke flat footed losing (6-2), Gatineau played very solid game dominating Quebec in 8-1 win in Videotron Center. Jeffrey Durocher with three goals and an assist, Alex Dostie with three goals and Vitalii Abramov with two goals and four assists led the Gatineau offense in their hand to lead their team to one sided victory.

After scoreless first half of opening period, successfully killing penalty to Olympiques defenseman Nicolas Meloche, Gatineau opened the scoring netting goals twice in eight seconds.

Taking his own rebound after seeing Quebec goaltender making first save Abramov scored Olympques first goal at 10:27.

Eight seconds later Jeffrey Durocher redirect shot from Teammate Vitalii Abramov beating Quebec netminder Callum Booth at 10:35.

A turnover in defensive zone proved to be costly for Quebec. Losing control of the puck Quebec defenseman Darien Kielb saw Jeffrey Durocher beat Quebec goalie Booth to his left side, with backhanded shot from the slot only 33 seconds into the middle frame.

photo courtesy of Jonathan L’Heureux of infosportquebec

Gatineau added a fourth goal in the game with 14:08 remaining in second periods. After Booth made the save on first shot by Yakov Tremin Durocher completed his hat trick at 5:52. Allowing four goals on 13 shots Quebec head coach Philippe Boucher pulled his starting netminder sending Evgeny Kiselev.

Scoring two goals in each of first two periods, Gatineau continue their domination on main scoreboard adding four more in the third periods. Already getting three points on first four goals scoring first goal adding two more assists Abramov has been the first to welcome Evgeny Kiselev with his second goal in the game 3:26 into the third periods. Going through two Quebec defensemen beating Kiselev on blocker side.

Rest of the third period belong to Alex Dostie who scored three more goals to complete his hat trick. First one came at 4:06 but not before referee had to review the sequence on video to be sure the Olympiques forward did not pushed the puck with his skate intentionally. After further review referee Dominick Bedard allowed the goal.

Dostie came back at 7:21 scoring visitor seventh goals, as he redirect a shot from teammate defenseman Eric Meloche as Quebec goalie already made first move on Colorado prospect first shot.

Dostie completed his hat trick beating Evgeny Kiselev with a backhanded shot at 11:35.

photo courtesy of Jonathan L’Heureux of infosportquebec

Been 0-in-three with a man advantage Quebec has been the beneficiary of five-on-three for one minute following penalties to Ryan O’Bonsawin and Meloche. Unable to break the ice on that first two men advantage, Quebec got another one this time of 58 seconds.

Been perfect almost all game Mathieu Bellemarre lost his shutout at 17:12 of the third period with Matthew Boucher scoring his 18th of the year.

“We were happy about last night performance, we came out very flat in Sherbrooke, we were very well aware of it, we got good meeting this morning, so we have to tip our hat off to our players who played very well game tonight.” Gatineau head coach Mario Duhamel said after the game.

“Excepted for seven or eight minutes in second periods where we went everywhere on the ice we led 4-0 and we run everywhere on the ice but in third we came back strong. We saw great collective plays on offense and defense.”

“We were opportunistic in the beginning we took advantage of the opportunities we had, we hurt them fast into the game. Duro (Jeffrey Durocher) is a guy who worked very hard, he scored his first last Friday, he did not found the net got lot of chances, but he did not put it in. Getting his first last Friday night hope he is started getting three more tonight, he could get more all that because he drove the net.” Duhamel said about Jeffery Durocher.

photo courtesy of Jonathan L’Heureux of infosportquebec

For Callum Booth who had been out after allowing four goals on 13 shots he did not found any excuses. “I can’t find anything to say, we lose that is it,” said the starting goalie Callum Booth. When another reporter asked another questions trying to make him comments the Carolina prospect did not said anything else “We can try to find all the excuses but they came here to play that is it.”

Veteran defenseman Raphael Maheux can’t found any explanations why Quebec came out the way they did.

“Hard to explain, I think it was errors over errors our goalies can’t do any miracle it was very hard to explain,” the veteran defenseman Maheux said. “We have had several chances on power plays, even during the game we have had some but defensively the mistakes we made can’t be acceptable. With the 10-2 loss it was our worse loss of the year.”

“We were supposed to be off tomorrow but we won’t be,” Quebec head coach Philippe Boucher said in his post-game press conference. “We ask to give effort since the beginning of the year most of the time we have had it. I would say maybe we have some guys who are tired a bit and waited for Christmas break but it only begin on Sunday. That is what make my deception, we did not began the way we should we simply weren’t be there, we have had lots of chances but we didn’t capitalized on it. Usually when you work hard that is where you put it in, in third periods it was like the first one,” continued Boucher.

Quebec next two games will be on next Friday and Saturday facing Baie-Comeau on Friday and Shawinigan on Saturday.

No other games were on QMJHL on Monday

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