The Lac St. Louis midget AAA Lions came out on top of an offensive duel against the Amos Forestiers Saturday night at the Dollard civic centre. Opportunism, effective forechecking and a solid performance by goalie James Povall were all key factors in the Lions’ 5-4 victory.
“We were inconsistent for many minutes. When we were good, we were really good and when we were bad, we were all over the place. In the second period, we started following the game-plan. We paid more attention to details. From then on, we started trying to win one foot at a time instead of 200 feet at a time. This changed the pace of the game while our goalie made the big saves,” said Lions’ head coach Jon Goyens.
Amos obtained a four-minute power play early in the first but wasn’t able to convert. The Lions were more opportunists when the Forestiers were penalized at the seventh minute. Well positioned in front, Vincent Gavrielatos accepted Jordan Ty Fournier’s pass from behind the net and put it past goalie Mathieu Bélanger-Hudon.
Amos had two excellent scoring chances in the first before Jimmy Paradis took advantage of a scramble in front to tie the score at 12:23.
After Amos had taken the lead at 5:25 in the second period, a turnover allowed the Lions to tie the score. An Amos defenseman trying to clear his zone put the puck directly on Michael Cohen’s stick. The latter was marauding unchecked in the slot and beat Bélanger-Hudon with a nice wrister.
Lac St. Louis took back the lead later in the period thanks to Daniel Sarraco’s persistence on the forecheck. His hard work along the boards allowed Maxime Fortier to recuperate the puck and score with a wrap-around.
The Lions augmented their lead in the opening minutes of the third period. Brandon Kosik made Bélanger-Hudon look weak when he beat him with a low shot coming from the aisle at 2:51.
Amos quickly responded with a goal as Samuel Pouliot out-skated Lions’ defenseman Jeremy Davies before beating goalie Povall with a high shot.
Amos obtained two quality scoring chances after Pouliot’s goal but weren’t opportunist enough to capitalize. Pouliot passed to Alexis Roy on a two-on-one but the latter was robbed by Povall at 7:30. Left-winger Alexandre Dufour obtained a penalty shot with a little more than five minutes left in regulation but again, Povall prevailed.
After the Lions’ Malik Johnson scored with 1:42 left, Amos came back with a goal of its own again as Pouliot used a scramble in the crease to his advantage and netted his second of the game. Amos pulled its goalie for an extra attacker in the last minute of play but Lac St. Louis held on for the win.
“What we lacked today was execution. We dropped the puck on many occasions, even on scoring chances. We made high-risk passes which led to us losing possession. We gave up turnovers that cost us,” said Forestiers’ head coach Martin Rondeau.
