Laval played their final two games before the holiday break last week. Despite struggling over the past few weeks, they were better on home ice, picking up victories in both of them to move back into first in the division.
Dec. 20: Laval 2, Belleville 1 – Two things tend to hold true when these teams meet. The games will be close and at some point, there will be a reminder of how much they don’t like each other. Both happened in this one. The game featured 92 minutes in penalties, 60 of which went to the Rocket who killed off all of Belleville’s nine power plays. Meanwhile, Laval wasn’t great on the man advantage either but their one tally was a timely one with Joshua Roy potting the winner in the third period.
Dec. 22: Laval 3, Cleveland 1 – After being a healthy scratch against Belleville, Sean Farrell had a triumphant return to the lineup, scoring in the first to open the scoring. That was the only tally until the third until Roy scored with just over seven minutes left. That proved to be a key goal as the Monsters got one back with under two minutes to play before Laurent Dauphin sealed the win with an empty-netter.
Skaters:
| # | Player | GP | G | A | +/- | SOG | PIMS |
| 2 | Noel Hoefenmayer | 2 | 0 | 0 | E | 6 | 2 |
| 10 | Joshua Roy | 2 | 2 | 2 | +3 | 9 | 0 |
| 11 | Rafael Harvey-Pinard | 2 | 1 | 1 | +2 | 1 | 0 |
| 12 | Alex Barre-Boulet | 2 | 0 | 1 | +1 | 8 | 14 |
| 15 | Sean Farrell | 1 | 1 | 0 | +1 | 3 | 2 |
| 17 | Luke Tuch | 2 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 7 |
| 18 | Vincent Arseneau | 1 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 0 |
| 21 | Riley Kidney | 1 | 0 | 0 | E | 1 | 2 |
| 23 | Tyler Wotherspoon | 2 | 0 | 0 | +2 | 0 | 0 |
| 24 | Logan Mailloux | 2 | 0 | 0 | E | 3 | 0 |
| 27 | Laurent Dauphin | 2 | 1 | 0 | E | 6 | 2 |
| 28 | Josh Jacobs | 2 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 1 | 6 |
| 42 | Lucas Condotta | 2 | 0 | 2 | +1 | 3 | 17 |
| 48 | Filip Mesar | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 1 | 0 |
| 49 | Jared Davidson | 2 | 0 | 0 | E | 7 | 0 |
| 56 | Adam Engstrom | 2 | 0 | 2 | +2 | 2 | 2 |
| 62 | Owen Beck | 2 | 0 | 1 | +2 | 2 | 0 |
| 63 | Florian Xhekaj | 2 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 21 |
| 81 | Xavier Simoneau | 1 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 16 |
| 84 | William Trudeau | 2 | 0 | 1 | +1 | 1 | 0 |
Goalies:
| # | Player | Record | GAA | SV% | SO |
| 31 | Connor Hughes | 1-0-0 | 1.00 | .969 | 0 |
| 71 | Jakub Dobes | 1-0-0 | 1.00 | .941 | 0 |
Team Leaders:
Goals: Davidson/Roy (12)
Assists: Barre-Boulet/Beck (14)
Points: Joshua Roy (23)
+/-: Beck/Davidson (+11)
PIMS: Florian Xhekaj (60)
Shots: Joshua Roy (91)
– Jakub Dobes returned to the lineup from his injury, resulting in Hunter Jones being sent back to the ECHL. That said, Dobes wasn’t 100% healthy after the Belleville game although he was good enough to dress as the backup against Cleveland.
– Up front, there was good and bad news on the injury front. Filip Mesar returned after a long absence but Xavier Simoneau didn’t play on Sunday due to an upper-body injury. He’s listed as day-to-day.
– Defenceman Noel Hoefenmayer was named to Canada’s entry for the Spengler Cup in Switzerland. He played in both games last week but will be away from the team for the next week and a bit.
Last Game’s Lines
Roy – Dauphin – Barre-Boulet
Harvey-Pinard – Condotta – Farrell
Davidson – Beck – Mesar
Kidney – Xhekaj – Tuch
Hoefenmayer – Mailloux
Wotherspoon – Engstrom
Trudeau – Jacobs
Friday/Saturday – vs Syracuse: Laval has fared well against the Crunch so far this season, taking all four matchups. Syracuse has slipped to sixth in the North Division in recent weeks with them struggling to score although they’ve allowed the fewest goals in the East. Former Hab prospect Joel Teasdale recently saw his tryout deal converted to a full-season contract with them.
With Cayden Primeau sitting for more than three weeks, there has been plenty of speculation about whether Montreal might call up one of Laval’s goalies for the remainder of their road trip, given that there are two back-to-backs in there. Who gets the nod is a topic for some discussion.
It feels like this is a good spot to highlight just how statistically close Laval’s two netminders are:
Connor Hughes: 14 GP, 2.43 GAA, .908 SV%
Jakub Dobes: 14 GP, 2.44 GAA, .910 SV%
Basically, that’s about as close to a coin flip as there can be.
There’s a case to be made for both goalies. Dobes is the shorter-term goalie of the future, or so they hope. (Jacob Fowler is still the goalie of the future but he’s a couple of years away still.) Giving him a taste of NHL action to see how he fares makes some sense and if things go well, then maybe there’s a short-term solution at the backup position. But on the other hand, as the younger of the two players (he’s 23), playing time still matters a lot and it might make more sense to give him the bulk of the minutes in Laval over spot duty with the Habs.
As for Hughes, he’s someone that the organization needs to decide on relatively soon as he’ll hit the open market again next summer. Is he a viable option to retain beyond this season, either as a piece for the Rocket or possibly to back up Samuel Montembeault? To best answer that question, they probably need to give him a handful of NHL starts at some point this season. But at the same time, he has only played 14 professional games in North America; would they be pushing him too soon?
They’ll have a couple of days to ponder the answer to who would be the best option to bring up or if they’re going to stick with Primeau for now and run Montembeault out there at a rate that’s unsustainable. There are pros and cons for each option but they way they’ve played this season, both Hughes and Dobes are equally deserving of the opportunity.
