The skill of Victoriaville's young forwards will be up against a high-powered Armada roster.
The 2v7 matchup in the Western conference is between two teams with some serious skill up front in the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada and the Victoriaville Tigres.
Between Justin Carbonneau, Egor Shilov, Xavier Villeneuve, Alexey Vlasov and more, the top talent will be on display in this series.
While the Armada have 35 more points in the standings and 17 more wins this season, the Tigres are determined to give them a fight in the opening round.
Armada star Justin Carbonneau dangles around Tigres blueliner Mateo Lepage. (Photo: Alex Garneau)What to expect from Blainville-Boisbriand
The Armada entered the season as favourites, but it hasn't been smooth sailing all year. They've struggled with injuries up and down the team, with important players from Bill Zonnon up front, to Spencer Gill and Xavier Villeneuve on the back end, to Jakub Milota in goal all missing significant portions of the season due to injury.
In Milota's case, he's still out indefinitely after playing just three games this season. His uncertain status led to the team acquiring 2026 NHL draft prospect William Lacelle from Rimouski, who has posted strong results with his new team, posting a .915 save percentage in 21 appearances with the Armada.
Blainville-Boisbriand hosts a very deep offensive group, led by QMJHL goals leader Justin Carbonneau. Behind him, options like Zonnon, Mateo Nobert, Vincent Desjardins, Matt Gosselin and Mael Lavigne round out a really strong group up front.
On the blue line, now that Villeneuve and Gill are both healthy simultaneously for the first time in a long time, having those two on a blue line that also features Jan Golicic, Theo Lemieux, Mathieu Taillefer and Zackary Plamondon make up arguably the best D corps in the league.
You can see why this team's expectations were so high heading into the season, and even if they aren't the top seed, their expectations remain sky high.
What to expect from Victoriaville
The Tigres are building up from being dead last in 2024-25, and while they're still in the bottom quarter of teams in the league this year, there was definitely growth from last season.
A majority of that improvement came from their two import stars in Shilov and Vlasov. The two Russian youngsters both hit 80 points this season, good for the seventh- and 10th-best marks in the QMJHL.
In goal, Gabriel D'Aigle (who has missed the past couple of weeks due to injury) has carried a huge amount of the load in goal, facing the most shots per game among qualified goalies by a pretty wide margin, and has come out of it with a .908 save percentage on the year.
That fact kind of shows the issue with this season's Tigres team, though. They are not good enough defensively. They routinely allow 40+ shots per game, and usually need a massive performance from their goaltender in order to win a game on any given night.
They'll be in tough against a high-powered Armada team, and will need an all-time performance from their top offensive stars and goaltender in order to make some noise in this series.
Schedule
Game one: Friday, March 27, 7:00 PM EDT @ Blainville-Boisbriand
Game two: Saturday, March 28, 7:00 PM EDT @ Blainville-Boisbriand
Game three: Tuesday, March 31, 7:00 PM EDT @ Victoriaville
Game four: Wednesday, April 1, 7:00 PM EDT @ Victoriaville
Game five*: Friday, April 3, 7:00 PM EDT @ Blainville-Boisbriand
Game six*: Sunday, April 5, 7:00 PM EDT @ Victoriaville
Game seven*: Tuesday, April 7, 7:00 PM EDT @ Blainville-Boisbriand
* = if necessary
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