Mar 19 Juniors Take Game 1 of Round 1 in Overtime

Montreal, March 19^th 2010 – The Montreal Juniors opened their second trip to the playoffs in team history in style on Friday night at the Verdun Auditorium. With this series marking the first time Montreal has played Gatineau in the post-season, the Juniors kicked off the playoffs with a 3-2 overtime victory in front of an enthused crowd to take a 1-0, best of seven series lead. 

Read on for the official Juniors game recap.

The Juniors set a strong tone early on as their aggressive play led to back-to-back penalties. Despite some stellar saves by Jean-Francois Berube, the Olympiques jumped out to a 1-0 lead as Adam Janosik opened up the scoring on the power play. However, it did not take long for the Juniors to answer back as minutes later, Nicholas Chouinard fired a rocket from the blue line to tie the score at 1-1. 

Both teams proved that they were evenly matched in the second as the back-and-forth play dominated the game and continued well past the half-way point of the period. Much like the first period, the momentum began to swing courtesy of a Juniors power play, which quickly turned into a two-man advantage. With Montreal controlling the puck, crisp passing gave Trevor Parkes a wide open lane which let his shot sail past Maxime Clermont for the 2-1 lead. 

Although Gatineau began the third period on the power play, the Juniors continued to play a stellar defensive game. However, with 6 minutes remaining in the third period, Gatineau’s Mitchell Porowski tipped a puck past Jean-Francois Berube to tie the game and send it to overtime. 

Overtime echoed the rest of the game as it provided for an exciting and even battle. Despite chances for both teams, it was Eliezer Sherbatov who at 9:13 finally broke through and notched the game-winner, giving the Juniors their first ever overtime victory since moving from St. John’s and the series lead.  

Juniors’ goalie Jean-Francois Bérubé stopped 26/28 shots in the win, while the Olympiques’ Maxime Clermont finished 35/38 in the loss. 

The series continues tomorrow night at 7:35, then reverts back to Gatineau for games 3 and 4 on Monday, March 22^nd and Wednesday, March 24^th. If necessary, game 5 will be played on Friday, March 26 at 7:35 in Montreal, while game 6 would be played on Saturday, March 27^th in Gatineau and game 7 will be hosted by the Juniors on Tuesday, March 30^th. 

Tags: Eliezer Sherbatov \ Gatineau Olympiques \ hockey \ Jean-Francois Berube \ LHJMQ \ Montreal juniors \ Nicholas Chouinard \ playoffs \ QMJHL \ Trevor Parkes