Olympiques grab series lead at home

Gatineau comes from behind in close-checking game for victory

Nothing like a rock-solid third period.

The Gatineau Olympiques trailed the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada 2-1 entering the third period Tuesday night but some outstanding goaltending from Francois Brassard, especially during an early power play, and some quick strikes turned a deficit into an advantage and an eventual 4-2 win.

And with the home win the Olympiques took a 2-1 lead in the opening round best-of-seven series with the Armada. Game 4 will also be at the Centre Robert Guertin Wednesday night.

A power play just 31 seconds into the third provided the Armada with some good scoring chances, but Brassard made three big saves during the two minutes, including a breakaway stop off Daniel Walcott and another at the side of the net on Nikita Jevpalovs. And with that the game turned. Shortly after the penalty expired, the Olympiques got goals 38 seconds apart from Jake Coughler and Louick Marcotte five minutes into the period.

After some more solid work from Brassard, Gatineau’s Valentin Zykov scored his first of the playoffs on a rebound at 18:43 to ice the victory. In all, 11 of Brassard’s 22 saves came in the third period.

Yakov Trenin also scored for the Olympiques while Philippe Sanche and Miguel Picard had the goals for the Armada, who got 16 saves from Samuel Montembeault.

The first two periods featured a defensive struggle with the Armada taking and holding a 2-1 lead into the final period. The teams each had just 11 shots on goal despite significant power play time for each team. The Armada had the game’s first four power plays, including three in the first period, yet they came out of the first period down 1-0 as Trenin scored on the Olympiques’ first shot of the game.

Trenin took a pass from Alexandre Carriere and carried the puck along the boards into the Armada end before beating Montembeault with a shot from the faceoff circle.

The fourth Olympiques penalty, a hooking call to Coughler at 11 seconds of the second period, finally cost the Olympiques as Sanche scored 46 seconds into the frame to tie the game.

At 8:38 of the second period the Olympiques finally received their first power play and it was thanks to the discipline of Yan Laplante and the stupidity of Armada winger Anthony Patriarco.

After Laplante delivered a clean hit along the boards, Patriarco hit Laplante, then cross-checked him and then dropped his gloves and started punching. Patriarco received a five-minute major and game misconduct.

Unfortunately the only goal during that five minutes came from the Armada as Miguel Picard scored short-handed at 11:18 to give the visitors a 2-1 lead.