Sep 06 Montreal Juniors End the Pre-Season with a 5-4 Shoot-out Loss

Much to this writer's pleasure, it would appear that fighting is alive and well in the "Q". In what was surely a previously discussed plan, no sooner had the puck been dropped for the opening face-off, when Gatineau's Steven Delisle and Montreal's Taylor Macdougall let their gloves drop as well as they skated to meet at centre ice. Score the edge to Gatineau by a slim margin but when it was all said and done, both players received 5 minutes for their effort, but went off knowing they had set the tone for tonight's final of 4 exhibition hockey games for the Montreal Junior and the Gatineau Olympiques at the Verdun Auditorium.

It did not take long for Gatineau to take the lead in this one as Junior Goalie Jake Allen made the initial save off a Matthew Fortune shot from the point, however he gave up a juicy rebound to Hugo Laporte who was all alone to Allen's right and promptly wristed the puck into an open net before Allen could swing over to make the save. 50 seconds later, in what seemed like a similar play, Matthew Fortune got his second assist of the night when he took a slap-shot from that very same point, only this time it rattled off the boards behind Allen, only to pop out, yet again to Allen's right where this time Yoan Pinette found the back of the net. The Juniors,  however, did manage to give the home crowd a reason to get back into the game when, while on the power-play being served by Takuma Kawai for hooking, the Junior got one back when deep inside the Olympique's zone, a loose puck squirted out of a scrum in the corner and ended up at the hash-marks where Benjamin Rubin was all alone and made no mistakes deking Gatineau goalie Marc Antoine Gélinas. the goal was scored at 7:07. the first period would end 2-1 in favor of Gatineau and the second would start with the Olympiques with a man advantage as Mathieu Lavoie was called for interference at 19:30.

The Juniors would not only kill off this penalty, but would come on strong offensively with the first line of Pier-Antoine Dion, Nick Layton and 15 year old Guillaume Asselin leading the way. With the Olympiques Mathieu Fortune off for roughing, Gerrit Fausser received another minor for boarding at 6:52. It only took the Juniors 19 seconds on the 5 on 3 to tie the game up when Pier-Antoine Dion took a pass from defenseman TJ Brennan and one timed it past the Gatineau netminder. while still on the man advantage, Montreal would take the lead when Maxime Plante would have his turn at finding the back of the net after a much improved power play for the Juniors than what had been witnessed only a few nights ago.

The Juniors could not capitalize on another 2 man advantage for a whole 2 minutes that was assessed to Gatineau when Bradley Macdonald was called for tripping. In the same play, the Olympique's Travis Stacy tried to get Montreal to draw a penalty of their own when he tried to get Junior Samuel Grenache to drop his gloves. Stacy was spurned by Grenache and was sent off on a roughing charge. During this power-play, however, the Juniors showed good puck control and rang many shots off Gélinas. Guillaume Asselin semi fanned on an open net shot to Gélina's right and moments later rang the puck off two goalposts and out as time wound down on the power-play. As is usually the case when golden opportunities are missed, the Olumpiques, after having killed off that 2 man advantage, Troy Barrs, with his outlet pass, sent Olivier Croteau streaking into the Junior zone on goaltender Jean-François Bérubé, replacing Jake Allen, and beat him on a top shelf wrister that Bérubé would have surely liked back. the 2nd would end tied 3-3.

In the third, the play and the players settled down somewhat with neither side wanting to commit the error that would result in the 3-3 tie being broken. The Juniors' Samuel Grenache had some noteworthy chances, specifically at the 8 minute mark where, during that span, was able to take advantage of a miscommunication behind the Olympique's net retrieving the puck and getting a shot on Gélinas, who made a great save. Moments later, Grenache was also involved in a 3 on 2 where he again was able to get a shot on Gélinas, but again Gélinas was on his game. The Juniors built on this momentum and applied good pressure in the Gatineau zone and while working along the boards, Mathieu Lavoie was able to find Matthew Brenton who promptly found Chris Thorne in the slot who backhanded the puck that just went up and over Gélinas before landing in the net.

The Juniors would not be able to hang on to this lead as they played with fire one time too often, getting into penalty trouble in the late stages of the 3rd. While the Juniors, with the solid play of Jean François Bérubé, were able to kill a roughing penalty to Pier-Antoine Dion at 13:28, they were not as fortunate at 17:23 when the Olympiques showed great puck control and beat Bérubé cleanly while on the power-play as Alex Wall sat in the box for yet another Juniors roughing penalty.

The third ended in a 3 all tie and in the ensuing shoot-out to determine the winner of this contest, All the Olympiques needed to send out were Yoan Pinette and Paul Byron as neither Nick Layton nor Guillaume Asselin could beat Marc-Antoine Gélinas, while the Gatineau snipers beat Bérubé twice in the best of 3 shoot-out.

This marks the end of pre-season play, as well as the Juniors' selection camp as coach Pascal Vincent will now have to make his final cuts in time for the season opener which takes place this Friday, September 4th in Quebec against Patrick Roy's Ramparts. The Juniors' first regular season home game will be on Saturday the 20th against those same Quebec ramparts. See you there !

Tags: Gatineau Olympiques \ Guillaume Asselin \ hockey \ Jake Allen \ LHJMQ \ loss \ Montreal Jumiors \ QMJHL \ Samuel Grenache \ September 7 2008 \ shoot-out