Olympiques flat in shutout loss,
It quickly became clear this would not be the Gatineau Olympiques’ game.
One minute into the opening period, leading scorer Émile Poirier missed an open net, and three power play opportunities in the first six minutes produced nothing.
Then Gatineau’s Simon Tardif-Richard was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct for a check to the head of Drummondville’s Sergei Boikov, leading to the Voltigeurs’ first goal by Jérome Verrier, and Olympiques captain Taylor Burke was helped from the ice after blocking a shot with his right leg.
Things never got better, either, and the short-handed Olympiques lost 4-0 to the Voltigeurs in a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League game at Gatineau’s Robert Guertin Arena.
Giovanni Fiore, Matthew Boudens and Frédérick Gaudreau also scored for Drummondville (22-11-4), which received 33 saves from goalie Louis-Philip Guindon.
Robert Steeves had a tough start for the Olympiques (2213-0), allowing the four goals on 14 shots through two periods. Anthony Brodeur stopped all six shots in the third.
It didn’t help that Olympiques skaters went 0-for8 on the power play in what was, charitably, a flat performance before 2,258 spectators. The cause wasn’t helped by the absences of forward Martin Reway (Slovakia) and coach Benoît Groulx (Canada) for world junior hockey championship camps, winger Derek Sheppard because of suspension and a couple of others on the injured list, which added defenceman Mickaël Beauregard during Sunday’s contest.
“Our strategy is pretty simple during the game,” assistant coach Eric Landry said. “It’s make the simple play to bring the puck to the net and get scoring chances out of it. Offensively this is what we are asking our players.
“Defensively, even if we don’t have all the players in the group, everybody knows what we need to do on the ice, and then we just have to executive it the right way.”
The Olympiques play their last pre-holiday games next weekend at Rouyn-Noranda and Val-d’Or. Their next home game is Dec. 28 against Blainville-Boisbriand.