Mar 14 QMJHL - Montreal Juniors End Season With A Bang, Crushing Val D'Or Foreurs 12-1

While the Montreal Juniors' last game of the season was nothing more than a statistic to the team, for their visitors, the Val D'Or Foreurs, a victory was the literal difference between post season play or the end of the season. With so much on the line and with regular goaltender Rafaele D'Orso already injured, it was surprising to see backup goalie Jean Sebastien Boucher sitting on the bench while complete newcomer Yan Bouchard was between the pipes for the Foreurs.

Perhaps, as is the case with most teams at this time of the season, Boucher may have been injured, but this goaltending decision would prove to be costly for Val D'Or. The game was a tad more than 2 minutes old when, while on the power-play, Louis-Marc Aubry scored on Bouchard's first ever faced shot in the junior leagues. Montreal's goalie, Jean-Francois Bérubé faced 6 shots in the period with two of them needing instinctual reflexes and Bérubé was up to the task. Val D'Or would get into some penalty trouble and Montreal would capitalize. After Pier-Antoine Dion put the Juniors up by 2, the Juniors would enjoy a 5 on 3 power-play and score 2 goals during that span. Moving the puck well with the extra room, it took only 17 seconds for Aubry to receive a beautiful pass from the side of the net from Guillaume Asselin and one-time it past Bouchard. Then, with only one second left on the clock, Nick Layton tipped an Alex Wall blast from the point to give the Juniors a commanding 4-0 lead.

Not surprising to anyone, Jean Sebastien Boucher would replace Bouchard in goal to start the second frame and would be welcomed on his very first shot of the period by Darick Ste-Marie with a little goalie interference as he got a little too overzealous while stuffing a goal past Boucher that would obviously be called back. Val D'Or, however, could not muster anything on the ensuing power-play, and to add insult to injury, as the penalty ended, Ste-Marie, just out of the box, fed captain Matt Fillier a sweet pass in the slot and Matt promptly deked Boucher for the Juniors' 5th of the night.

It was quite obvious from my vantage point that at this stage of the game, Val D'Or must have just wanted to go home and forget about this game. Roughly 2 minutes after Fillier's goal, Jérémy Gouchie one timed an Alex Wall rebound to beat Boucher high, glove side and then only a little over a minute later, Matthew Brenton skaet in on an odd man rush and had his turn beating Val D'Or as the entire Foreur bench looked decimated. Val D'Or would also take their second goalie interference penalty (crosschecking to be precise) of the night while already serving a penalty, giving Montreal another 5 on 3 for 30 seconds. Luckily for Val D'Or, Montreal would not be as fruitful this time around.

But the goals kept coming. Louis-Marc Aubry would get his 3rd goal of the game at 14:14 and in a complete domination of the puck in the Val D'Or zone, Montreal kept peppering Bouchard and on a pick-up from behind the net, Samuel Grenache managed to swing in front and surprise Boucher for his 6th of the season and Montreal's 9th of the game. One bright spot for Val D'Or as they were killing off a p enalty at the end of the period was when Matthew Lachaine got a break and scored, short handed to break Bérubé's shutout bid. But that was the end of Val D'Or's light. They then got into more penalty trouble and would allow Montreal to go yet again on a 5 on 3 that would spill into the 3rd period for 20 seconds.

On a night when it seemed like Montreal could do no wrong and Val D'Or, no right, the third period would commence with Montreal's 10th of the game. The Juniors, working the puck on the Power-play would set up at the point where Dmitri Kostromitin would fire a laser past Boucher for his 7th of the season. The Foreurs must have been looking for the emergency exits at this point, as only moments later, Aubry would be allowed to skate in on Boucher and get his 4th of the game and 10th of the season. The remainder of the 3rd period was purely played for the sake of posterity, with Val D'Or knowing they could never come back and Montreal preserving their enrgy and coasting to an easy 12-1 victory as Philippe Fontaine would add yet another goal on yet another power play towards the end of the 3rd. 

While Montreal may have wanted to win last Friday night's contest against the Huskies in order to build momentum and send their future playoff rivals a message, however, one would assume they must have also done both with their biggest offensive output of the season on their last game of the regular season. With this win, Montreal ended their inaugural season with a record of 34-30-2-2. The playoffs against the Huskies commence next Friday night, 7:30 PM at the Verdun Auditorium

Tags: Dmitri Kostromitin \ Jean-Francois Berube \ LHJMQ \ Louis-Marc Aubry \ Montreal juniors \ Pier-Antoine Dion \ QMJHL