QUEBEC CITY P.Q. — Left winger Guillaume Goulet played a very strong game for Victoriaville ending with one goal and one assist. Yanni Gourde who played on the fourth line saw his effort for the night rewarded with the game winning goal (third one) with 58.8 seconds remaining in second period.
Coming into Quebec Colisee on Saturday night you could easily feel something was about to happen. With the crowd ready to play its role hoping to see their team tie the series at one game all.
But unfortunately, like the first game Victoriaville was the first team to break the ice for the second consecutive game. Guillaume Goulet wristed shot that beat Quebec goaltender Louis Domingue high on his glove side, 3:23 into the first period.
Quebec missed an excellent opportunity to tie the score before the end of the first. After Joel Champagne was penalized for tripping at 18:00, Yannick Dube was sent to the penalty box for delay of game at 18:04 resulting in a five-on-three power play opportunity for Quebec. However, Quebec was unable to test Tigres goaltender Keven Poulin with the opening period ending with Victoriaville still leading by one.
With the crowd still behind their team Marc-Olivier Vallerand on a two-on-one breakaway found a hole in Poulin’s armor scoring Quebec’s first goal of the game. With the score 1-1 Quebec fans believed their favorites could take the momentum and find a way to beat the Tigres goaltender and take the lead for the first time in the game.
Victoriaville came back with next the two goals. Philippe Maillet 11:06 and Yanni Gourde with 58.8 seconds remaining in the second period gave the two goal lead to Victoriaville.
Leading 3-1 Victoriaville seemed in control of the game but Quebec played their best period of the series shooting on Poulin 16 times trying to find a way to beat him. Tigres’ goaltender continued to be sharp making several key saves.
Marc-Olivier Vallerand, during a penalty to former teammates Samuel Groulx, scored with his second of the game, seventh of the playoffs, reduced the Victoriaville lead to one goal 3-2 with only 5:29 gone in the third.
“We played sixty minutes tonight,” Vallerand said after the game. “Except for couple minutes where they scored two goals we dominated them physically and in several other aspects in the game.”
“That’s what I said after the game we have to put these two games behind us and focus on the job need to be done. We did it last year; we have to believe we can do it again, this time against Victoriaville,” Vallerand added.
Trailing only by one, Quebec head coach Patrick Roy decided to pull his goaltender with 1:12 remaining in the period. Unfortunately it went against Quebec with Joel Champagne scoring Victoriaville fourth goal in an empty net.
Talking about his team work defensively Tigres head coach Yanick Jean praised his defensive unit.
“Our defensemen did good job blocking shots, cutting passing lane with their stick, they play good tape on tape passes they did good job technically.”
Next game in this series will be next Monday April 5th.
Elsewhere in the QMJHL
Gatineau Olympiques vs. Saint John Sea Dogs: Saint John won 7-2
Jonathan Huberdeau with two goals, Stephen MacAulay, Mike Hoffman, Zach Phillips, Tomas Jurco and Stanislav Galiev scored Sea Dogs goals.
Adam Janosik and Alexandre Beaton scored Gatineau’s goals.
Saint John leads their series 2-0.
Next games in this series will be next Tuesday April 6th, and Wednesday April 7th.
Rimouski Oceanic vs. Drummondville Voltigeurs: Drummondville won 3-0 leading their series 2-0 with next game in Rimouski.
Gabriel Dumont with two goals the other went to Marc-Olivier Vachon. The shutout belonged to Jake Allen.
Philippe Tremblay was the starting netminder for Rimouski taking Matthew Dopud place.
Game two and three will be in Rimouski next Tuesday April 6th and Wednesday April 7th.
Moncton Wildcats vs. Rouyn-Noranda Huskies: The Wildcats needed overtime to win game two in Rouyn-Noranda by the score of 4-3.
Randy Cameron, Alain Saulmier, Daniel Pettersson and Devon MacAusland got Moncton goals.
Jerome Gauthier-Leduc, Sergey Ostapchuk and Philippe O’Connor replied for the Huskies.
Due to the distance between the two cities more than 750 kilometers, the next three games will be in Moncton. Next games will be Tuesday April 6th, Thursday April 9th and Friday April 10th.
Contact the author at: serge.poulin@prohockeynews.com
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