QUEBEC CITY P.Q. — After Game 2 of the second round of the QMJHL series between the Quebec and Cape Breton, the task ahead of Patrick Roy’s Remparts will become even harder after losing the 5- 3 in front of 12,864 fans who might see the team for last time in the 2008-09 season. Forced to admit that the Game One loss in quadruple overtime Friday night had more damage then everyone would like to believe, Quebec stepped onto the ice Sunday afternoon believing they could come back to tie the best-of-seven quarter-final series. They took the lead early, but the big guys from Cape Breton stayed focused to their game plan. They got back in the game and never really look back once they took the lead. The Screaming Eagles allowed only one goal at even strength and returned home leading the series 2-0, something that even the visiting head coach never even thought would be possible. “Our goal was to come here to pick up one game, and the fact that we came out of here with two victories, it’s unexpected. We told to our guys, the other team has lots of talent so to be satisfied we need to get four wins. We know we got two. When we get back home we play with much confidence at home,” said Screaming Eagle Head Coach Mario Durocher after the game. “We have to give credit to the players, we didn’t panic. We stayed calm and focused on what we have to do. The guys on our penalty kille did a big job, now the momentum is on our side. What I like the most is the players are happy, but they aren’t satisfied.” Cape Breton played like a team at home, and seemed as if it was easy to play against Quebec, something Durocher didn’t seem to agree with. “I don’t think it seemed easy. You have to give credit to the guys. We worked on a lot of things, we have lots of Anglophone on the team, maybe they didn’t understand all about it’s been said.” Olivier Roy played very well for the second game in a row in front of the hostile fans in Quebec, making 22 saves out of 25 shots. ” Our 17 year old goaltender wins a series last year and did very well against Halifax. He already has more experience than the one (Charles Lavigne) we played against” answered Durocher. The home crowd thought their favorite team scored the first goal of the game on a Cape Breton penalty defenseman Mathieu Brodeur (boarding 7:18) but unfortunately for the home fans, the referee refused the goal to Quebec due to a hand pass. The Remparts came back to open the scoring this time by being the beneficiary of a two man advantage due to consecutive penalties to Nick MacNeil (tripping 13:43) and Francis Meilleur (roughing 14:02). Guillaume Monast’s wrist shot from just inside the right face off circle, beat Screaming Eagles goaltender Olivier Roy at 14:54 of the opening stanza. Cape Breton’s tying goal came less than two minutes later (1:37), also with two Quebec players in the penalty box (Michail Stefanovich (slashing 15:28) and Marc-Olivier Vallerand (high sticking 15:59)). Robert Slaney score his second goal in as many games lighting the lamp behind Quebec netminder Lavigne at 16:31. A five minute penalty for kneeing to Remparts center David Gilbert with 35:09 seconds left in first period proved to be costly for Quebec in the beginning of the second period, when the Eagles took a 2-1 lead on a power play goal by Chris Culligan, who completed the great effort by Stephen Horyl and Michael Ward with only 55 seconds gone in the second period. Quebec missed an excellent chance to tie the game when one of the two referees allowed a penalty shot to Remparts captain Kevin Marshall when he was prevented of getting an excellent scoring opportunity. Unfortunately for Quebec, the defenseman’s shot hit the post. Marc-Olivier Vallerand brought both teams back to square one with a great individual effort beating the Cape Breton netminder at 11:15 of the second period. Cape Breton regained the lead 3-2 before the end of second period when the future property of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Joey Haddad, took a rebound shot from Chris Culligan and only had to push the puck behind the Remparts goaltender to get the Eagles third goal at 14:52. Vincent Lavigeur scored Cape Breton’s fourth goal of the game that give the Eagles a two goal lead for the first time in the game 1:28 into third period. The goal seemed to make the crowd in le Colisee suddenly realize that it will really be a tough task for their favorite team to come back in the game. To make things worse, Cape Breton defenseman Mathieu Brodeur’s shot from 150 feet went through the Quebec netminder’s leg at 6:19 for a 5-2. Following the goal, Roy decided to pull his starting goaltender and sent in his own son, Jonathan Roy, between the pipes. Following the game, Brodeur was surprised to see his shot beat Lavigne. “Yes I was surprised. I simply tried to shoot the puck into the zone to kill some time and it went in.” For Patrick Roy, having to go to Cape Breton trailing 0-2 wasn’t the ideal scenario. “You were absolutely right. We will have to find a different angle and take it one game at the time. We will have to win one game at the time, that’s it.” “Their best players were better than ours,” said the former Colorado netminder. “If I look at their record, Slaney one goal, Culligan one goal, Haddad one goal, their best line played better than ours. I’m sure that if the line of Breault (Benjamin), Michail Stefanovich, and Jean-Simon Allard isn’t the dominant, it will be harder for us to win the series. Are they able to do it? That’s another story.” The next three games in the series will be Tuesday April 7, Wednesday April 8, and Friday April 10. In the other QMJHL series, on Saturday Drummondville won 4-3 in overtime over Montreal, Moncton tied their series with Rimouski at one, and Gatineau also tied their series winning 5-3 over Shawinigan. Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com
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