QUEBEC CITY, P.Q. —Winning only two of previous five meetings between the two teams, Victoriaville won the last meeting between the two in front of their fans by the score of 4-1. Maxime Comtois was the best Tigres offensively with a goal and assist.
Victoriaville was the only team to successfully put a puck behind opponent goaltender. Getting control of the puck deep in Quebec territory Antoine Lessard beat Quebec goalie Evgeny Kiselev who has been already down with a backhanded shot with 13:08 remaining into the opening period.
Victoriaville had the edge in shots on goal 13-9. Besides the goal by Lessard, the only other good scoring opportunity on home team came from the stick of center Alexandre Goulet.
Trailing by one Quebec got two chances with a man up to try to tie the game. If Tigres successfully killed the first one, Quebec has been found guilty by referee Maxime Comtois cutting short Quebec second power play opportunity with 47 seconds left to Victoriaville penalty.
Playing four-on-four, Tigres took advantage more space on the ice to score their second goals. After Remparts goaltender make first save on the shot from the blue line from Bradley Lalonde, Jimmy Huntington just had to take the rebound and push it in an empty net at 9:34.
Already been 0-in-2 with a man up, Quebec took advantage of their third power play opportunities to score their first goal. Perfect up until 4:36 left into second period, making first save on Quebec right winger Mathieu Ayotte, Dereck Gentile, left alone near goalie James Povall crease, took the rebound scoring his 20th of the year, becoming by the same fact, the second 20th goals scorer on the team, the other one, being Matthew Boucher who saw his season ended following an injury.
Ending the second period on power play and beginning the third one with 1:23 advantage, Quebec wasn’t able to bring both teams to square one with a second goal. Instead Victoriaville regained their two goal leads with the 39th of the year by Alexandre Goulet taking a rebound from a long shot from the blue line by Bradley Lalonde at 12:18.
Maxime Comtois scored Tigres fourth goals as he picked the puck in the air before driving to the net and beating Quebec netminder between his pads exactly with 3:00 remaining in the game.
Quebec will end their weekend with a visit at Gatineau facing the Olympiques.
Eight other games were on QMJHL schedule on Friday night
Halifax 1 vs. Acadie-Bathurst 3
Moncton 4 vs. Cape Breton 9
Charlottetown 1 vs. Saint John 5
Chicoutimi 1 vs. Blainville-Boisbriand 3
Sherbrooke 1 vs. Drummondville 2
Shawinigan 0 vs. Gatineau 2
Baie-Comeau 2 vs. Rimouski 4
Rouyn-Noranda 6 vs. Val-d’Or 2
Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com
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