Rocket vs. Thunderbirds Recap & Highlights: Cayden Primeau closes the door on Laval’s maiden win

After a disappointing opening weekend against the Belleville Senators, the Laval Rocket returned home at Place Bell on Wednesday night. They faced opponents from last year’s Eastern Conference Finals, the Springfield Thunderbirds.

After Mitchell Stephens served the second game of his suspension, Nate Schnarr moved into the lineup for a second straight game. Also back was rookie William Trudeau on defense, passing Alex Green in the third pair alongside Madison Bovey. In the net was Cayden Primeau, looking for his first win of the season after losing in overtime on Friday.

It looked like The Rocket opened the scoring in less than a minute thanks to a superb counter-attack led by Danick Martel. The veteran winger broke in and got a shot at Joel Hofer, who came up in the air and landed on his net. Brandon Gignac charged into the net, knocked the puck off the net and then knocked it home, but a review led to the decision it was played with a high stick and the game remained scoreless.

The two sides continued to trade chances, with Primeau catching a shot from Tyler Tucker with his glove and Hofer fending off Rafaël Harvey-Pinard with a save. Laval drew the first power play of the game and they scored a couple of tight decisions, but the Thunderbirds survived early pressure to bring the game back to even strength.

The Rocket’s speed gave the Springfield defense fits while the Thunderbirds’ heavy cycle kept the Laval group on their heels. The Rocket’s pace gave them the advantage as they hauled back-to-back penalties thanks to their pressure, and while the first penalty went without a goal despite Jesse Ylönen pounding the crossbar, they also started phase two with an advantage.

Laval’s power play was quickly nullified when Harvey-Pinard was called to hold, pushing the game to four-for-four before a brief Springfield power play. Again, the Rocket’s speed kept the Thunderbirds off balance enough to immediately neutralize their power play, and then they put Laval back on their own man advantage.

The power play struggles continued to haunt the Rocket as they failed to convert for the fourth time and to add to the problem they had to kill a penalty of their own as Xavier Simoneau headed for the penalty area. For every bit that the power play looked off the pace, the penalty shootout looked dialed in as they thwarted all of Springfield’s attempts to hit Martin Frk for his massive slapshot.

As the second period progressed, the Thunderbirds began taking over the game and finding a way to prevent the Rocket from using their speed and began enforcing their tough playstyle. With the Thunderbirds pedaling hard, Primeau was determined not to allow connection chances at the net and keep the game scoreless.

As the third drew to a close, the intense forecheck returned for Laval and only a strong save from Joel Hofer prevented Laval from scoring in the closing seconds of the third.

The pressure finally paid off for Laval as just over four minutes elapsed in the third period. The Rocket countered from within their own zone, with Schnarr firing a leading pass into the offensive zone for Otto Leskinen. Leskinen fired the puck over the zone for Gabriel Bourque, who shot it off Hofer to break the deadlock.

Springfield almost tied it shortly after when a shot got through to Primeau and Rocket’s goalie couldn’t find the loose puck. Greg Printz found it but was denied a goal in open netting thanks to a powerful stick down the goal line from Justin Barron to keep Laval ahead.

The Rocket spent much of the time trying their best to endure Springfield’s repeated attacks as the guest pushed hard for an equalizer. As he had done all night, Primeau held them at bay with aplomb. In the last four minutes, however, the Rocket had to deal with a decisive penalty when Tory Dello went into the box for a high-stick.

The penalty killers did incredibly well without one of their main plays pinning down the Thunderbirds shooters and escaped the kill unscathed to keep a tenuous lead intact.

There was one final challenge for the Rocket as the Thunderbirds pulled Hofer in the final 1:55 of the game to try once more to find the winning goal. A few key blocks from Mattias Norlinder allowed Dello to eventually lock in the puck and shoot it into the empty net to seal the win.

End result: Rocket 2, Thunderbirds 0

With their first win under their belt, the Rocket are now heading to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for a Friday night showdown with the Penguins, with a puck drop scheduled at 7:05 p.m.