Quebec downs Baie-Comeau, 7-4

QUEBEC CITY, P.Q. — If Baie-Comeau seemed in control of the game leading 3- 0 your view would be wrong as Quebec came from behind scoring seven unanswered goals to drown the Drakkar in front of 12,899 fans in le Colisee Pepsi.
 
Baie-Comeau opened the scoring 4:51 into the opening period when Drakkar defenseman Hugo Laporte (formerly of Gatineau Olympiques) saw his shot deflected off Quebec center Joel Champagne’s skate before going by Jimmy Appleby.

 
Quebec dominated the first period 10-3 but thanks to Drakkar goaltender Simon Giroux the visiting team came out with the lead 1-0.
 
Baie-Comeau added two more goals inside four minutes of the second.
 
Former Quebec Remparts veteran Maxime Gravel scored the Drakkar’s second goal beating Appleby low on his glove side at 5:16. Raphael Bussieres put Baie-Comeau on the board again, first with a man-advantage at 9:16 ending the night of work for Appleby.
 
“I wasn’t happy to have to make the goalie change,” Quebec head coach, Patrick Roy, said explaining why he made the move.   “Jimmy wasn’t to be blamed for the goals he allowed; defensively it was three situations where we didn’t play good at all. It was the circumstances whether I took a timeout or I make a goalie change. I opted to change the goaltender. It might be tough for him but it happened in a situation where we want to end as high as possible in the standing unfortunately we have to put aside the player development.”
 
Matthew Brown broke the ice for Quebec beating Baie-Comeau goaltender Simon Giroux who was excellent until then, with a wrist shot from the slot low on Giroux glove side 42 seconds after Drakkar third goal.
 
Mirko Hoefflin with first of two in the game reduced the deficit to one goal when his shot went between Giroux’s pads crossing the goal line slowly behind Baie-Comeau netminder.
 
Quebec defenseman Alex Wall went from behind his own goaltender going end to end beating Drakkar goaltender with a backhanded shot that found a tiny hole between Giroux’s pads for the tying goal at 18:37 of second period.
 
After seeing his team giving up three consecutive goals Drakkar head coach also decided to pull his starting goaltender Giroux sending Jason Missiaen to end the second period but Giroux came back in the third to end the game.
 
“No, Simon (Giroux) didn’t have any problem; I simply want to change the momentum they (Quebec) had just scored three times I just made the change instead of taking a timeout. I went to talk with Simon to calm him down and tell him to be ready to come back in third period. Until then our goalie played very well and he was responsible for the goals scored against him.” Baie-Comeau head coach Mario Pouliot said after the game.
 
“When Wall scored his goal going end to end we were beaten at three different places that chance the momentum. With the score 3-0 we werevery opportunistic that’s the reality. After that we were on our heels. When I look their second and third goals it was two bad positioning on our for check we didn’t have any reasons to be out of position like we were. But we ware a young team we have to learn. When you have a team that plays with lots of maturity we played on our heels.”
 
Quebec began the third period welcoming back Baie-Comeau with two goals in 27 seconds. Hoefflin with his second of the night made great move beating Drakkar goaltender on his left side at 1:23. Joe Dube made 5-3 Quebec when his wrist shot beat Giroux on his left side 1:50 into third period.
 
Tomas Filippi (6:10), Vincent Barnard on a power play (15:43) complete the scoring for Quebec. Last Baie-Comeau goal came from the stick of Elietzer Sherbatov with 50 seconds remaining in the game.
 
Coming back from after the World Junior Championship Filippi was happy to score his 20^th goal of the regular season.
 
“It was good coming back from vacation and scored goal tonight. No we didn’t panicked after trailing 3-0 we kept our focus to our game and made the come back.” Filippi said.
 
For his part, Roy recognized the first Remparts goal scored by Brown seemed to open the gate for his team.
 
“Yes no doubt about it we had lots of good scoring chances his goaltender has been excellent but I have no doubt the goal of Brown gave us the energy. But that’s what I asked to that line, to give us some energy following the goaltending change. The three players worked very well together, they did the job,” Roy explained.
 
Quebec will have couple days off before going back on the ice in preparation for their next opponent next Friday January 21 in Rimouski.
 
Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com