Nov 11 Montreal Juniors Stifled at Home in 4-0 Loss To L'Acadie-Bathurst Titans

Sometimes, rest is overrated. The Montreal Junior were fresh off a 3 day rest after a week that saw them take 4 points out of a possible 6, including a tough, yet well battled loss to the number one Shawinigan Cataractes and were back on the ice to host the L'Acadie-Bathurst Titans for the second time this season. Montreal was a point behind the Titans in the standings, yet had a few games less played than their opponents. The Juniors' season record was above .500 at 11-10 but were looking to build on a 7-4 home tally against the Titans, who were just under .500 on the road.

The Titans proved that stats are sometimes just ink that can be deceiving as they put most of those stats in doubt. There were still just over four minutes left in the 1st period and L'Acadie had already scored 3 goals. The first was a shot from Éric Faille that was going wide on Jake Allen but took an unlucky deflection off a Juniors' player's stick and sailed in.

Two minutes and change later, Spencer Jezegou got one of his easier goals of the year when Faille again took a shot on Allen that slithered between his legs and laid on the goal line for what seemed like an eternity. With no Junior defenseman able to protect Allen, Jezegou tipped it past the Montreal netminder. Moments later, on a delayed penalty call, L'acadie was set up in the Montreal zone and it only took Tomy Joly, the team's leading goal scorer 8 seconds to pop in his 12th goal of the season, as he was seemingly all alone to Allen's right and roofed it for a 3-0 L'Acadie lead.

Coach Pascal had seen enough. In a move to stimulate the team, he replaced Allen with backup goalie Jean-François Bérubé and called a time-out to rally the troops. Upon resumption of play, Joly backhanded his 13th, and second of the night past Bérubé on L'Acadie's first shot towards him. 

The second would add nothing if not a bit of pep to the juniors' step as they would have many an opportunity to get on the scoreboard as they were able to outshoot L'Acadie by a 16-2 margin. Montreal, however, was unable to capitalize on 3 man-advantage opportunities with their closest chance coming when Louis-Marc Aubry received the puck while completely alone in front of L'Acadie goalie Nicholas Champion. Aubry had enough time to stickhandle back and forth before shooting onto Champion, who made the save. On a defensive note, following his own turnover at centre,  Dmitri Kostromitin made a terrific sliding swipe to knock the puck off the Titan player who would have been off to the races in search of L'Acadie's 5th goal of the game.

After the Junior's 2-1 loss to Shawinigan, I tried convincing coach Pascal Vincent that his team played well despite the outcome, but I wouldn't be able to repeat this feat tonight. Montreal played as if they had never played together before, there was no cohesion, no semblance of a team that had been through drills before, drills that one should be able to go through in your sleep. No, this game, from a Montreal perspective, looked more like a game of shinny with players trying to get a feel for each other. Montreal's passes were either into the skates, bouncing off sticks or landing on the blades of the other team's sticks.

L'Acadie, on the other hand, played a great away game, building up a 4 goal lead and coasting through the other two periods with some solid defensive play, stifling Montreal's already wanting power-play. Nicholas Champion stopped all 39 shots he faced, 13 of them being real chances, for his first shut-out of the season and L'Acadie left Montreal with a well earned 2 points.

Coach Vincent was more optimistic with his assessment of the night's events. "We took 39 shots on net and the boys tried, but we didn't get the bounces. We also only allowed 12 shots against, but they were able to capitalize on their chances early, scoring 3goals on less than 10 shots". When asked about pulling Jake Allen in the 1st period he answered, " There's not much we can say against Jake. Some days the puck looks like a big balloon and others it looks like a pea." 

Montreal now reverted back to a .500 record, now at 11-11. An all too familiar story for a team that has been looking for consistency from day one of their inaugural season.

If the 3 day rest between games played a factor in the sluggishness demonstrated during this loss, then the next few days should cure what ails them. After a day off tomorrow, Montreal faces the PEI Rockets on Friday, then head to Gatineau on Saturday and complete their week as they host the Moncton Wildcats. While they will hope to regain some ground in the Telus west division during those three games, what they will have to keep in the back of their minds is that after this stint, they will have another four day layover after which they will meet Patrick Roy and his Ramparts on the day before Roy gets his Jersey retired at the Bell Centre. 

When asked what the Juniors would have to do differently in order to bounce back against their upcoming opponents, Coach Vincent responded, "Score goals." Touché.

photo by Amanda Stein.

Tags: hockey \ LHJMQ \ Montreal Junior \ Pascal Vincent \ QMJHL \ Verdun Auditorium