Puckers win first of two Division Est finals game in Epinal
Photo by Bohus
25 April 2016
In the first game of the away and home series for the Trophée Loisirs Division Est final, the Puckers traveled to Epinal on Sunday morning to play a very tight game against Gamyo and luckily came out on top 5-2.
The Luxembourg team managed to get the full roster to travel and started newly arrived Austrian recruit Matthias Rainer in net.
As always against Epinal, the start to the game was filled with nervousness and tension, but the Puckers first line established themselves pretty quickly in the Epinal zone and peppered goalie Perrin with a number of shots. On the second shift of that line at the 4:17 mark , the Puckers struck first with Momo Lutov burying the feed from Charles Vallée into the open net. The game plan was to set the tone early and it only worked partially. On the next shift and just over a minute after the 1-0, Epinal's Zitouni scored the equalizer on a defensive breakdown of the Puckers. Rainer had no chance to stop Epinal from evening the score at 1-1. The game announced itself to become very tight. The rest of the period, like most of the second period, was a game of Puckers creating multiple opportunities in the Epinal zone and Epinal playing the man deep looking for breakaway opportunities. All three Puckers lines created chances and put pressure on the Epinal goaltender and defense. In the meantime Rainer made a couple of impressive saves on 1-on-0 breakaways to keep the game tied at 1-1 to go into the intermission.
The second period started the way the first ended. The shot count on Epinal's goal was piling up while Rainer had to be sharp to prevent the occasional breakaway by Epinal from getting the Puckers into trouble.
It was only at the very end of the second, with less than 90 seconds left in the period that defenseman Bruno Vahalik put a slapshot direction Epinal goal that was then tipped at the last second by Patrick Ahlstrand to fool Perrin and go five-hole into the back of the net. Puckers take a well-deserved 2-1 lead into the second intermission.
With the winner of the series going to the Finals of the Trophée Loisirs 2016 in Meudon/Paris and the total goal count of the two games being the tie-breaker, the Puckers wanted some insurance goals in the third.
Lutov scored his second of the game three minutes into the third on a powerplay after another tic tac toe play with Vallée and the Puckers seemed to be pulling away as the Epinal squad and goalie seemed to be worn out by the efforts of playing constant defense. But penalty trouble on the Puckers' side kept Epinal in the game for a little longer and with both Miikka Heinonen and Lutov in the box, Epinal scored on a 5-on-3 against a screened Rainer. Epinal had life, but only until Vallée added his first goal and third point of the game on yet another powerplay. Mike Mekhaeel put the game away a couple of minutes later when he converted on Nick Aubin's pass and with Yves Barthels providing the screen on Epinal's goalie.
As always against Epinal (and probably every other team in the league can attest to that), the game got a bit chippy in the end, but the Puckers stood their ground and go back home with a huge win on the road.
Man of the Match was Charles Vallée who not only contributed three points to the win, but also stood up for his team at the very end when he challenged Epinal's Sebastien Geoffroy who had been unreasonably (not to say "cheap shotingly") belligerent throughout the game and who embarrassed the rest of his quite cordial squad by not staying for the traditional two teams picture.
Game Two of the series is Friday night at 20:00 in Kockelscheuer. The Puckers control their destiny and can advance to the French Finals with a win.