Victoriaville wins 5-4 in shootout over Quebec

QUEBEC CITY, P.Q. —With one week off after losing against Montreal last Friday, everything should have been in place to expect a victory against Victoriaville. The Tigres came in le Colisee Pepsi looking to improve after been trounced 10-0 by the Remparts February 2^nd. And guess who scored the goal in shootout giving the victory to the visitor? If you guess former

Quebec defenseman Samuel Groulx you won a piece of robot because you were right.
 
After missing two great chances hitting the post on two occasions to open the scoring, Quebec saw their opponent break the ice with the 14^th of the year by Yanick Dube who only had to deflect the shot taken by Brandon Hynes near the Quebec crease beating Louis Domingue low on his right side at 16:17.
 
Being re-activated after missing several games, Remparts right winger tied the game one all taking a rebound from defenseman Ryan Culkin’ shot from the blue line beating Victoriaville David Honzik between his pads at 18:53. On Quebec’s first goal Ryan Bourque who also played his first game after being on injury list for couple game collected his 50^th point of the year getting the second assist on Dube goal.
 
Victoriaville showed character coming in Quebec and winning the game even if it came in shootout.
 
“For us our win tonight wasn’t revenge,” the Tigres head coach said after the game. “We needed to rebound after a loss like last time against Quebec, we needed to prove to ourselves, we showed lots of character, we need to prove we could play much better. It was really satisfying for that.”
 
Like the first period, both teams traded goals but this time with a man advantage.
 
Victoriaville took advantage of a penalty taken by Quebec captain Mikael Tam who had been sent to the sin bin for high-sticking at 3:22. Yanick Gourde wristed the rebound shot from Dube beating Quebec netminder for Tigres’ second goal at 4:03.
 
Quebec replied 1:57 later with a power play goal with Victoriaville right winger Dube in the box. Tam, who saw his penalty be costly, scored Quebec’s second goal in the game completing a tic-tac-toe play deflecting the pass from Alexandre Grenier near the crease exactly at 6:00 minutes of second period.
 
Two goals by Victoriaville in 2:26 of the third period gave them a two goal lead for the first time in the game. Brandon Hynes with only 26 seconds gone in the period breaks the tie giving Victoriaville a 3-2 lead. Guillaume Naud completed great play by Vincent Marcoux gave to the Tigres a 4-2 lead at 2:36.
 
You often hear in hockey that a two goal leads is often the worst lead to have because the other team needs only to score the next goal and the team that already had the two goal lead begin to play with nervousness.
 
Grenier cut Victoriaville lead in half scoring with a man advantage. Left alone near Honzik crease beating Victoriaville goalie 5:47 into third period.
 
A second turnover in the Victoriaville defensive zone gave Quebec the chance to tie the game 4-4 pushing both teams to play an overtime period and eventually to go to the shootout. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out in Quebec favor losing their fourth consecutive game for the first time this season.
 
John Audy-Marchessault who was singled it out as one who didn’t play a good game against the Tigres (being responsible for first Victoriaville goal by his head coach Patrick Roy), scored Quebec fourth goal the one that force both teams to play a fourth period. Marchessault beat Tigres netminder with a wrist shot on a short breakaway at 15:03.
 
Quebec head coach Roy identified Joe Dube as possibly his best player against Victoriaville.
 
“When your best player in a game is Joe Dube (and I didn’t have anything against Joe) it says a lot about the other players on the team,” said Roy in his post game press conference.
 
“Offensively we need to be more creative; we have certain situations where along the board we need to make the play and honestly we didn’t play good enough to win the game. Defensively Tam (Mikael), Barnard (Vincent) and Wall (Alex) didn’t play their best hockey. Offensively, even if Marchessault scored the tying goal forcing both teams to go in overtime, he cost us the first goal and defensively, he took bad decisions. He missed a chance in second period on a breakaway to give us the lead it was the same against Montreal and Gatineau,” Roy continued.
 
After a scoreless overtime, Victoriaville netminder closed the door on Quebec forwards Ryan Bourque, Mirko Hoefflin and Alexandre Grenier. Domingue on the other side stopped Brandon Hynes and Philippe Maillet before seeing former Remparts defenseman Samuel Groulx put the puck behind Quebec netminder giving a 5-4 win to Yanick Jean team.  
 
Quebec won’t have much time to think about the loss hosting the Rimouski Oceanic tonight.    
 
Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com