Great results in the Maritimes for the Cataractes!
After earning their first two wins of the season, the Shawinigan Cataractes were heading East to face Cape Breton, Charlottetown and Moncton for their first trip in the Maritimes this season. Daniel Renaud’s players responded well and earned 2 wins out of 3 games.
Antoine Demers gets the winner in dramatic fashion!
On Thursday night, even though Cape Breton stroke first as early as the third minute, the Shawinigan Cataractes took control over the first two periods of play notching 5 goals. First, Vasily Glotov, Samuel Blier and Antoine Demers scored each putting Shawinigan ahead after 20 minutes of play. Thanks to Mikhail Denisov’s brilliant performance (Cape Breton’s Mathias Laferrière and Egor Sokolov managed to pass one by him), Daniel Renaud’s team was in control!
In the second, Gabriel Sylvestre showed great skills when he undressed the defenceman and followed with a beauty to beat Kyle Jessiman on his glove side. A few minutes later, Vincent Senez who’s playing really well with Demers and Blier prepared the table for Samuel Blier’s second of the game. After 40 minutes of play, Shawinigan was ahead 5-2.
In the third, Samuel Asselin also managed to beat Cape Breton’s goaltender to put his team ahead 6-2. That’s when Shawinigan failed to keep the lead. Cape-Breton scored 4 goals over ten minutes to push the game in overtime.
But Antoine Demers had other plans in mind and early into overtime, he put hard pressure on an opponent and stole the puck in the offensive zone. Directly after that, he used the defenceman as a screen to take a great shot and give his team the win!
Final score, 7-6 for Shawinigan.
Charlottetown beats the Cataractes
On Saturday night, Shawinigan was back at it this time against the Islanders. The first period of play saw both teams get on the board as Vasily Glotov continued his impressive play scoring early in the game. Moments later, Gregory MacLeod pushed a rebound behind Denisov to tie the game at one.
The second period of play belonged completely to the Islanders as they outshot Shawinigan 18-2. Of those 18 shots, two beat Russian netminder Mikhail Denisov when Saku Vesterinen and Olivier Desjardins gave their team a 3-1 lead after two periods of play.
Shawinigan showed a better effort in the third and Samuel Asselin took Matthew Welsh by surprise with a shot from the corner that slowly got behind the goal line. But that’s as close as they would get since Charlottetown added one on the powerplay in the last minutes of the third.
Final score, 4-2 in favor of Charlottetown.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Glotov show!
The Cataractes had the tough challenge to beat Moncton at the Irving Center for the first time this season. Moncton’s offense was on top of the QJMHL and Shawinigan could have seemed like an easy task for the Wildcats as Daniel Renaud’s team played possibly the worst game of the season the night before. In the net, Lucas Fitzpatrick was trying to earn his first career win in the Q.
17 seconds of play were enough for the home team to get a 1-0 lead as Anderson McDonald passed one behind Fitzpatrick. The rest of the period belonged to the Cataractes. Gabriel Sylvestre and Jan Drozg, in just a few minutes turned things around for the visiting team.
In the second, Jan Drozg with his second of the game and Vasily Glotov added more to the Shawinigan lead while Lucas Fitzpatrick stopped almost everything as only Jérémy McKenna scored late in the period.
Would Daniel Renaud saw his team blow away another 4-goal lead? Veteran 20-year old Vasily Glotov stole the show scoring twice in the third notching the hat trick and giving Shawinigan her sixth goal of the game. Moncton scored twice before the end of the game but that wasn’t enough to complete the comeback.
The man responsible for this win in the last 20 minutes of the game was Lucas Fitzpatrick who made 23 saves. A stunning performance for the rookie netminder which gave him in first win the Q!
With only one second left in the game, Vincent Senez scored in an empty net.
Final score, 7-4 in favor of the Cataractes
