After a difficult start to the season, the Montreal Canadiens AHL affiliate is in the playoff picture.
Saturday's 3-2 win against the Belleville Senators kicked off Laval Rocket's second half of the 2023-24 season. With 40 points through 37 games, the Canadiens AHL affiliate sits in fourth position of the North Division and two points behind the third place Rochester Americans.
Even though there are five teams that will clinch a playoff birth in the division, Laval will need to keep the pedal to the metal as the three clubs trailing them are an arm's length away.
The playoffs being in reach for the Rocket is surprising considering the way that the season started. On December 8th, the club lost for ninth consecutive time and had five wins in 22 games.
The following afternoon, they recorded a convincing win against the Hartford Wolfpack and it's been a complete 180 degree since that point. In 15 games since snapping the losing streak, Laval has won 12 times and are currently on a streak of nine games without a regulation loss.
"We were losing games at the start of the year and we weren't playing good, but we knew we were a better team than that. We got a lot of young guys here and we were feeling out the league a lot. I feel like we're all clicking now and we have to keep it going," Logan Mailloux shared on Saturday.
Prior to the start of the season, coach Jean-Francois Houle repeated that with the number of rookies and new players on the roster, he expected a difficult start and it would take until Christmas before things picked up for the team.
The leadership group of captain Gabriel Bourque, Lucas Condotta and Tobie Bisson had a lot to do with the team creating chemistry off the ice.
"We have a very close team and no guys are selfish. Everybody is happy for each other and that's what creates a winning culture and I'm happy to be part of it," noted Condotta.
"It's a domino effect. You have a guy that blocks a shot, you have a guy that fights and it pushes the others to do the same thing. Everyone's working hard and it's pushing everyone to work hard and right now we're working as a team," added Bisson.
"You have to hate losing a game. Nobody had fun [during nine-game losing streak] and now everything is going well and everyone wants to keep it going. We see ourselves going up in the standings and it feels good. At the start of the year, it was tough to believe that we would make the playoffs and now we see the little light showing up and we will keep going," said Bourque.
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