Jaxon Castor held his barrage until midway through the third period, but then gave in to attacks from the Laval Rocket.
The Montreal Canadiens farm club showed great strength of character to overcome a three-goal deficit and eventually score a 4-3 victory in overtime on Wednesday against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins thanks to net by Jared Davidson.
In a game that will undoubtedly make the coaching staff gray, Davidson jumped on a free puck near the semi-circle to sow hysteria at Place Bell.
The Rocket (22-10-3) did not seem to be celebrating with eight minutes remaining in the game, but the floodgates began to open.
William Trudeau, Florian Xhekaj and Gustav Lindstrom threaded the needle to force an overtime. A penalty from Mac Hollowell against Xavier Simoneau finally made the difference.
Cayden Primeau also left his mark on the result, making saves that no longer seemed to mean anything. He blocked 27 pucks to allow Laval to obtain at least one point in a fifth game in a row (4-0-1).
At the other end of the ice, Jaxon Castor didn’t think he would make his AHL debut, but an injury to Filip Larsson allowed him to step in front of the net in the second period.
Sometimes spectacular, sometimes generous, Castor repelled 26 of the 30 shots aimed at him for the Penguins (20-9-4), who suffered a second defeat in a row.
Avery Hayes, Jonathan Gruden and Emil Bemstrom moved the ropes for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton team. Larsson was perfect in front of 12 shots before leaving the match.
The Rocket will return to action Friday night, when they visit the Comets in Utica.
Turnaround
Laval’s first period was not like its weekend in Cleveland and they seemed to be skating in quicksand. The Penguins took advantage of this lack of speed to score the first two goals of the game.
After Adam Engstrom lost control of the disc, Rutger McGroarty seized it to initiate a surplus. He outdistanced the Rocket defender before making a pass that Hayes redirected between Primeau’s pads.
Pascal Vincent’s troops were able to deploy their numerical advantage to try to create equality, but it was they who were instead played a trick. Noel Hoefenmayer was unable to reach Gruden and he had a front row seat to see the Penguins forward beat Primeau.
The Rocket stormed Larsson’s net before the end of the period, but Lucas Condotta missed a golden opportunity. Logan Mailloux saw his shot hit the post to the left of the goalkeeper.
The home team started the second period with much more confidence. Castor, however, made his presence felt by making a spectacular glove save at the expense of Filip Mesar, who had an empty net in front of him.
Condotta wanted to change the pace by engaging in a fight with Dan Renouf and his teammates responded well. Shorthanded, Mailloux once again came up against the left post while Laurent Dauphin missed a perfect shot from Alex Barré-Boulet.
However, indiscipline slowed down the Rocket’s pace in the second half of the period. Primeau made a nice save on McGroarty before he and his defense closed the door on a two-player penalty kill for 85 seconds.
In the last third, Bemstrom thought he had sounded the death knell for the Laval team, but Castor showed that he was indeed human. He first offered a gift to Trudeau on a rather innocuous shot before being surprised by Xhekaj. Both players hit the target from the near side.
With a little over three minutes to go, the roof of Place Bell practically exploded when Lindstrom fooled Castor with a low shot.
The stage was set for Davidson’s goal, which followed the play well at the end of a power play in overtime.
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