Phoenix drop two games over the weekend
Sherbrooke allows 10 goals over two games in back-to-back losses
The Phoenix dropped two straight games making the team winless in their last three games over the Thanksgiving Weekend. On Friday, Moncton came away with a 5-3 win and then on Sunday, the visiting Victoriaville Tigres handed the Birds a 5-4 loss as well.
Against the Wildcats on Friday, Sherbrooke fell behind early as starting netminder Evan Fitzpatrick battled to control the puck against opposition. Jeremy Mckenna scored for Moncton just 2:38 into the game collecting his own rebound at the side of the Sherbrooke net before Fitzpatrick could cover up the puck. The 1-0 lead didn’t last long however. Phoenix forward Felix Robert evened the game 28 seconds later with his fourth goal of the year. Robert crashing towards the Moncton net got a stick on a loose puck to push it past the goal line at 2:56.
Two more goals from the Wildcats’ Jonathan Aspirot and Mika Cyt at 6:19 and 16:11 meant that the visiting Wildcats would take a 3-1 lead into the first intermission.
Sherbrooke eventually answered back scoring the next two goals to tie the game 3-3. Mathieu Olivier scored by grabbing a rebound from a shot by Olivier Crète-belzile at 14:00 of the second period and Hugo Roy tied the game at 6:01 of the third period with a powerplay-goal at 6:07 of the third tipping in a Thomas Grégoire point shot in front of the net.
However, the tie game lasted a total of six seconds. Immediately off of the faceoff Mckenna split the Phoenix defence and ripped a shot top shelf past Fitz- patrick for the game winner at 6:07 and just over three minutes later Mckenna completed the hat-trick with his third of the night at 9:24, making it a 5-3 win for Moncton. Fitzpatrick stopped 31-of-36 shots in the loss.
Against the Tigres on Sunday, Sherbrooke fell behind early again giving up a goal 2:12 into the game when James Phelan scored short handed, to make it 1-0. Robert tied up the game for the Birds with a dazzling play at 7:05 of the first period. Robert went from blueline-toblueline evading three straight Victoriaville defenders weaving through the neutral zone before firing a hard wrist shot top shelf on Tristan Côté-cazenave to tie the game, 1-1.
Victoriaville scored the next two goals to go up 3-1, with scores from Mathieu Sévigny and Pascal Laberge at 12:36 of the first and 2:03 of the second period, the latter of which prompted head coach Stéphane Julien to pull Brendan Cregan from the net for Evan Fitzpatrick. Cregan had stopped 9-of-12 shots to that point.
Sherbrooke scored their next goal to pull the game back within one goal when Marek Zachar finished off a slick tic-tac-toe play with Grégoire and Roy at 6:41 of the second.
Unfortunately, with a chance to tie the game on a power play, Vitoriaville struck again for their second shorthanded-goal of the game when Maxime Comtois scored at 10:09 of the second period.
One minute later Marek Zachar pulled the game back within one score with a powerplay-goal with a well placed shot through traffic from the blueline.
Less than a minute after Zachar’s sec- Sherbrooke wore their Pink jerseys for their annual Match en Rose game against Moncton Friday night. The jerseys are worn to raise awareness and raise funds for breast cancer research.
ond goal of the game Comtois put the Tigres back up by two goals scoring at 12:07, pushing the score to 5-3.
Despite a late push, it was too little too late with Hugo Roy scoring a late goal at 19:58 to make the game a 5-4 loss for the Birds.
The Phoenix’s power play has struggled since the start of the year, and it was very evident the last two games. Against Moncton, Sherbrooke was 1-for-5 with the man advantage. Against the Tigres Sherbrooke was abysmal going 1for-7, while also giving up 2 shorthanded
goals. Last season Sherbrooke had the third ranked power play in the QMJHL scoring at a rate 25.3%. This year through seven games the Birds are ranked 16th, scoring at a rate of 14.3%.
This week will have a heavy workload for the Phoenix playing four games in five days. Sherbrooke will travel to Chicoutimi to play the Saguenéens tonight and the Drakkar of Baie-comeau Wednesday before hosting a home-andhome with Drummondville Friday and Saturday, with Sherbrooke hosting the Friday night game.