Habs News: NHL, Montreal Canadiens, Laval Rocket, Cayden Primeau, Christopher Boucher
ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | LAVAL, QC. — The Laval Rocket had an opportunity on Saturday afternoon to close out the best-of-five series against the Syracuse Crunch. Syracuse opened struck first with a goal during the sixth minute of the first period. Laval failed to get any pucks at the back of the net, and the Crunch forced a game 5 with a 3-0 shutout victory.
“I didn’t think we had a great game, I felt like our guys were a little tired. [Syracuse] played with desperation, and they played a good game. It’s a good team! And I knew they were going to come out and play well defensively, and they did. That’s playoffs. Now we just have to regroup ourselves, and be ready for the next game,” coach Jean-Francois Houle said.
“We were ready to go off the get-go. We need to be better off the start. They came out stronger than us today, they were more intense, won more 50-50 battles,” forward Alex Belzile added about the team’s start. “We had chances, we didn’t play bad. On the contrary, I think there’s a lot of positives to take from this game.”
The Rocket struggled in their own zone on Saturday, which led directly to two goals against. “I think we didn’t play that good in our zone, we had a difficult time to get out the puck. Around the net, we had a tough time to get in front of the goalie, tough time to bring the puck to the net. That’s something we have to adjust for the next game,” forward Rafael Harvey-Pinard explained the loss.
Missed Opportunity
Syracuse was the first team in 48 games to shutout Laval. The last team to blank the Rocket was the Hartford Wolfpack on Jan. 15th. Laval had a golden opportunity to get on the board midway through the first period. Crunch goaltender Hugo Alnefelt entered the game replacing starter Max Lagace, after forward Gabriel Dumont pushed Alex Belzile on Lagace.
Dumont was penalized on the sequence, and the Rocket faced a cold goalie, but failed to get a puck to cross the red line. Forwards Jean-Sebastien Dea and Jesse Ylonen came close as they hit the post on back-to-back shots.
“The whole game we didn’t succeed in entering the crease, like we did in previous games. We could have taken the opportunity to send more pucks, but we didn’t get the chance today,” captain Xavier Ouellet explained.
“When a goalie enters the game like that, he’s cold. We spoke about shooting on the net. That’s what we did on the power play, and after that they played well defensively, we played bad offensively, it’s a mix of both. We made it easy for him, and we’ll have to be better around him,” added Harvey-Pinard.
Primeau Bouncing Back
For the start of the series, Jean-Francois Houle decided to give the net to veteran Kevin Poulin instead of Cayden Primeau. Leading up to the playoffs, Houle said that winning takes precedence over development in the post season.
Primeau was not happy with the coach’s decision, and had an opportunity to show Houle that he’s part of the solution in game 2, after Laval lost the opening match of the series.
The 21-year old goalie responded with three consecutive solid starts in this series. Primeau has recorded 2.05 goals-against-average,.939 save percentage, and named one of the three stars in each game.
Between his time travelling between Laval and Montreal, Primeau’s performance has been inconsistent throughout the season. General manager Kent Hughes acquired veteran Andrew Hammond, after seeing Primeau struggle in the NHL.
“I talked to quite a few people about the mental side of things, and you got to have a short memory, and the biggest thing was just trying to get back to my game, and doing the things that help me have success,” Primeau spoke on Friday about working to improve his performance.
One of the people that helped him was Canadiens goalie Jack Allen. “It doesn’t really matter how things are going, you just try to get better every day. So if things aren’t going your way or you’re not feeling your best, just focus on one thing and try to work on that,” Primeau said about the advice from the veteran.
Deciding Game
The fifth and deciding game between the Rocket and the Crunch will take place on Tuesday. This season, Laval has won two of six games played at the Upstate Medical Arena in Syracuse.
The Rocket are putting Saturday’s loss behind them and focusing on the final game. “We were expecting a long series, and that’s what we have. In general, they’ve been tight games. We’re turning the page quickly, and getting ready for Tuesday,” said Ouellet.
“We’ve been saying since the start of the series that we can never be too high or too low. We’re swallowing today’s loss, we forget about it, and move on. There’s one more game left, the most important game of the year. We’re going to Syracuse to win it,” Harvey-Pinard said.
As expected in the playoffs, the teams have grown to hate each other, and its resulted into physical play. On Saturday, forwards Cedric Paquette and Nate Schnarr missed time due to injuries. Both forwards finished the game, but postgame Houle said that there’s concern on their status for game 5.
The coach is expected to shift his lineup from 11 forwards, and seven defencemen, to the conventional 12 forwards, and six defencemen, as he felt that some of his players were tired. Based on Saturday’s usage, Mattias Norlinder with 8:10 of ice time would be the scratched defenceman.
Boucher Hired
The Canadiens announced on Friday, the hiring of Christopher Boucher as the team’s Director of Hockey Analytics. Boucher was a professional scout with the San Jose Sharks, and previously worked for sports analytics company Sportslogiq.
Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes both stressed the importance of creating a hockey analytics department for the organization. During Marc Bergevin’s tenure, minimal importance was given to analytics.
“We are very happy to add Christopher Boucher to our team. Christopher is an industry-proven hockey analytics specialist. We recognize the importance of analytics in today’s NHL and believe that Christopher is the right person to lead this department,” Hughes said via statement on Friday.
In his role, Boucher will provide data to management and coaches to help them evaluate players and make strategic decisions.
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By Chris G., Senior Writer
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