The midget espoir Tigers beat their Lac St. Louis counterparts, the Royals 4-2 Sunday morning at Vincent Lecavalier Arena in Ile Bizard. Special units were key to the Tigers’ success. They spent 22 minutes in the penalty box and did not allow one goal on the penalty killing. On the other hand, their power play scored three times on four occasions.
After having come back from 1-0 and 2-1 deficits in the first two periods, the Royals were unable to come back again in the third period when the Tigers scored again at 13:56.
“We were in the box the whole game and our penalty killing unit did a hell of a job stopping their power play and when the time came, our power play ended up getting us the win. Our hats go off to the penalty killing and our goalie. They kept us in all the way,” said Tigers’ assistant coach Jason Dorrington.
The Tigers missed a couple of good scoring chances in the first. Chris Chaddock had a breakaway but missed and Daniel Sprong missed an open net on a rebound. Sprong completed Sam Dove-Mcfalls’ cross-ice play with 2:27 remaining in the first period to open the score.
The Royals came back with a goal early in the second period when Logan Clark scored shorthanded at 1:10. But the Tigers scored back 50 seconds later when captain Trevor Butler beat goalie Ryan Coughlin.
As the Tigers spent 10 minutes in the penalty box in the second period, the Royals obtained quality chances. Francis Deschenes hit the post on a breakaway around the 10-minute mark while Shawn Brewer-Jette missed another good chance on a great pass from Peter Arcoudis minutes later.
Arcoudis out-smarted goalie Matthew Efros at 13:21 when he feigned to go around the net but brought the puck back when he saw Efros had taken the bait and easily put the puck in the net.
The Tigers limited their indiscipline to six minutes of penalty in the third and unleashed a barrage of shots on Coughlin who fought hard to keep his team in the game.
Massimo Luciani and Chaddock obtained back-to-back two-on-ones around mid-period but were stopped. Sprong and Luciani obtained other quality scoring chances before the latter was finally able to beat Coughlin on the power play after he got a hold of a rebound with 6:05 remaining in regulation.
Jayme Stepto obtained the Royals’ best chance to tie the score with 2:40 to go when he got a breakaway but he was stopped. Chris Theodore scored on the power play with 59 seconds remaining to make the score 4-2. This would be the final score.
“I am really happy about the way we showed up for this game. We were ready. You have to give credit to the other team: they have players who can put the puck in the net at the right time. In general, I think we played better than them but this is a hockey game... We shouldn’t leave with our heads down. This was a good match,” said Royals’ head coach Éric Lecompte.
