Nobody said it would be easy when the Montreal Canadiens’ farm team, the Laval Rocket, qualified for the divisional final against the Buffalo Sabres’ farm team, the Rochester Americans. Laval had won the regular season championship, but Rochester had quite an impressive roster, including a solid goaltender in Devon Levi, one of the league leaders in points in the postseason in Kale Clague, and Jiri Kulic, who spent most of the season in the NHL. The series was decided in a fifth and ultimate game Sunday at Place Bell, and the locals pitched a perfect game to prevail and qualify for the Conference final.
After rookie Jacob Fowler stumbled in game four, Cayden Primeau was back in the net and has played his best game of the playoffs so far. The 25-year-old stopped the 27 shots that made their way to his net and oozed confidence the whole way through, inspiring his teammates to a 5-0 triumph to march on in the Calder Cup playoffs.
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Pascal Vincent’s men weren’t at the top of their game throughout the best-of-five series. At times, they struggled to get pucks to Levi’s net, and their forechecking wasn’t on point, but last night, they had no such issues. Laval came out strong and perfectly executed its game plan.
The power play was clutch, scoring twice, including the first goal of the game, halfway through the first frame, when Alex Barre-Boulet scored his third of the playoffs with assists from Sean Farrell and Joshua Roy. Farrell has been a constant menace in this series. He brought the momentum he built in the second half of the regular season to the Spring dance, and as a result, he now has eight points in nine games. Roy has the same number of points, but it has more to do with him being opportunistic; unlike Farrell, he hasn’t been in all battles.
Less than four minutes later, Farrell added what would turn out to be the insurance marker. Laval added a pair of lamplighters in the middle frame, with Lucas Condotta dealing a massive blow to Rochester’s hopes with a goal just 24 seconds into the second frame. Roy found the back of the net with just over a minute left in the second to put Laval ahead by four.
Oliver Kapanen scored the fifth and final goal of the game on a wicked one-timer shot that came off a Roy pass. The puck literally went through Levi as he moved from one side of the net to the other, which is a pretty accurate metaphor for the series since the Rochester goaltender’s performances just weren’t good enough in this third-round matchup.
In the Conference final, Laval will take on the Charlotte Checkers, the Florida Panthers farm team, who swept the Hershey Bears and had been waiting for an opponent since May 21. This fourth-round series is a best-of-seven and will start in Laval on Wednesday night, with the second game being played on Thursday night. Should the series go the distance to seven games, it will move to Charlotte for the next three games, and the final two games will be back in Laval.
Photo credit: © Jamie Germano/Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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