QUEBEC CITY, P.Q. — The Shawinigan Cataractes earned the right to continue the dance for the QMJHL President Cup by eliminating the Prince Edward Island Rocket 4-1. The Quebec Remparts swept their first round opponent the Val-d’Or Foreurs in four games.
The Cataractes and Remparts met four times during the 2010-11 season with Quebec winning three times and losing only once.
Even if you always hear players or coaches trying to convince themselves, that the playoffs are new season, deep down teams that won the regular season series begin with a slight edge after all.
The verbal sparring has already begun, four days before the first puck drop, when Quebec head coach Patrick Roy, threw the first rock in the other court.
“I would use Kavanagh (Ryan), (one of the best offensive defenseman in Shawinigan line up) on the penalty killing unit, and advising the Cataractes defenseman, to change his skating blades, because he felt too often against the Rocket in first round,” Roy said adding fuel to the embers.
The Cataractes quarterback defenseman seemed amused by Roy comments, replying in le Nouvelliste newspaper to reporter Steve Turcotte, “I asked Lenny (Patrick Leonard, the equipment manager) to change my skating blades for Friday. What he (Patrick Roy) said wasn’t important, it won’t bother me, and it won’t motivate me more either.”
If Kavanagh didn’t seem bothered by the Roy comments, it was different story for Shawinigan head coach Eric Veilleux.
“Visibly, he (Roy) seems to be prepared to coach both teams in this series, his and mine. Listen, I respect Patrick, he always has great advice for others. I’m looking at it, maybe it is a good idea to use him (Kavanagh), in all penalty killing situations. With the kind of work he does at even strength, the two minutes on the power play, it would play around 50 minutes by games.”
The series promises to be interesting on and off the ice if it continue that way.
Let’s have a look at both lineup and try to see which teams get the advantage on the other.
Goaltenders: Gabriel Girard earned the confidence of his coach with a 2.80 goal against average in 53 games and .910 save percentage in regular season. Girard gave up 142 goals in 1430 shots in 3044 minutes of play. In the first round, he played all five games ending with 1.58 G.A.A. and .949 save percentage, giving up only 8 goals on 148 shots in 303 minutes of play. Shawinigan back up netminder Alex Dubeau ended the regular season with a goal against average of 3.00 and .897 save percentage giving up 53 goals on 462 shots in 1061 minutes of play. He didn’t see action in playoff yet.
Veilleux couldn’t ask for better performance from his number one goalie, and he is very confident he can duplicate his performance against Quebec.
In Quebec: Roy’s main man between the pipes is Louis Domingue. Even if the Mont St-Hilaire Qc native didn’t play up to expectations during the regular season, Domingue ended 2010-11 season with 2.65 G.A.A. and .898 save percentage, allowing 134 goals on 1177 shots in 3032 minutes of play, Roy has plenty of confidence in his number one netminder. In first the round Domingue played in all four games with 2.00 goals against average and .922 save percentage. He allowed 8 goals on 94 shots in 240 minutes of play.
Quebec’s backup goaltender, Jimmy Appleby ended the regular season with a goaltending average of 2.52 and .894 save percentage. He gave up 45 goals on 378 shots in 1073 minutes of play.
Looking at the numbers after the first round one could give a slight advantage to Shawinigan, but it will be interesting to see how the Quebec goaltender will respond facing the challenge of being better over a minimum of four games or a maximum of seven.
On defense: Besides Kavanagh (third best scorer with 70 points in 68 games, 28 points in 28 games with Shawinigan since being traded from Rimouski Oceanics), Gabriel Lemieux (25 points in 63 games) and Marc-Antoine Goyette (19 points in 46 games) are the three best offensive defensemen on whom Cataractes coach Veilleux will count to launch great offensive from the blue line. Justin Hache, Dominik Schlumpf and Dillon Donnely complete Shawinigan defensive corps.
In Quebec: The Remparts possibly has one of the best defensive units in the league if you look the offensive productions from their defensemen. Martin Lefebvre (55 points in 65 games), Vincent Barnard (52 points in 68 games), Alex Wall (49 points in 68 games) and Captain Mikael Tam (45 points in 68 games). Rookie Ryan Culkin (11 points in 40 games and Veteran Guillaume Rousseau (7 points in 54 games) complete Remparts defensive units very well.
Advantage Quebec
On offense: Dave Labrecque (75 points in 58 games), Benjamin Casavant (73 points in 68 games), Captain Michael Bournival (64 points in 56 games), Yannick Veilleux (48 points in 68 games), Anton Zlobin (45 points in 59 games), Maximilien Le Sieur (44 points in 68 games) and possibly the hidden germ Peter Sakaris (38 points in 32 games) represent Shawinigan offensive force.
In Quebec: John Audy-Marchessault (95 points in 68 games), Joel Champagne (82 points in 68 games), Ryan Bourque (59 points in 49 games), Frederick Roy (58 points in 65 games), Tomas Filippi (56 points in 62 games), Mirko Hoefflin (45 points in 54 games), Joe Dube (32 points in 60 games, 17 points in 26 since coming in a trade from Shawinigan) and Alexandre Grenier who signed as free agent from St-Jerome Panthers in Junior AAA (24 points in 31 games) give Quebec a well balance offensive.
Advantage Quebec
Intangibles: Quebec scored 27 more goals than Shawinigan in regular season ending with 277- 250. In goals against, Quebec allowed 17 goals less than Shawinigan 187-202. Quebec has the advantage in power play situations, their power play runs at 28.7 percent (77/268) compare to 25.7 (69/269) for Shawinigan. Quebec penalty killing unit work at 81.6 percent (39/212) compare to 79.9 percent (49/244).
Teams battle all season long to earn the privilege to begin series at home. This series will begins in Quebec Friday and Saturday for first two games, before relocating for three and four in Shawinigan. If game five is necessary it will be in Quebec, game six in Shawinigan and if game seven needs to be plays both teams will coming back in Quebec.
Quebec will prevail in six games.
Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com
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