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Cougars to meet Granby in division finals - Champlain ousts College Français |
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The Champlain College men’s hockey team advanced to the Quebec Junior AAA Hockey League semi-finals Sunday night when they downed College Français of Longueuil 7-4 to win their quarterfinal playoff series, four games to two. Sunday’s victory was Champlain’s fourth consecutive win after dropping the first two games of the best-of-seven series.
The Cougars now advance to the Sherwood Division finals when they will meet the regular season division champion Granby Inouks. The schedule for the best of seven series has not yet been announced but the first game will be played in Granby.
The Cougars wasted little time in taking an early lead Sunday as captain Martin Drolet scored just nine seconds into the game. Teammates Ryan Murphy and Yann Poulin got into the action with a goal apiece and suddenly Champlain was sitting on a 3-0 lead before the five minute mark of the period. Longueuil finally got on the board in the second period when Olivier Gauthier scored his third post season goal to cut the Champlain lead to 3-1.
The Cougars got a little breathing room when David Hivon and Alexandre Gagnon scored goals late in the second period to make the score 5-1 heading into the final period. College Français refused to quit and got back in the game when Etienne Archambault, easily College Français’ best player in the series, scored his eighth and ninth goals of the playoffs in a 77-second span to narrow their deficit to a two goals. However, with eight seconds left on the clock, Champlain College’s Martin Drolet scored his second goal of the game and fifth of the post season into an empty net to seal the win for the Cougars.
The story of the game, as it has been for most of the season, was the Champlain goaltender, Alexandre Dubois, who was sensational with a 34-save performance in a game in which his team was outshot 37-18.
While Champlain jumped out to an early lead Sunday, it was a different story Thursday night when they rallied from a three-goal deficit to record a 7-4 victory in the pivotal Game Five played at the Eugene Lalonde Arena.
College Français appeared to be in the driver’s seat when they jumped out to a 3-0 lead early in the second period but Judes Vallee’s club refused to panic and scored five consecutive goals to take a 5-3 lead after 40 minutes of play.
Etienne Archambault scored a pair of power play goals and Guillaume Langelier-Parent added a single to stake College Français to its 3-0 lead. Drolet started the Champlain rally with his third goal of the series when he scored at the 2:10 mark of the second period. Philippe Bolduc, Simon Demers and Christophe Rodrigue followed with second period goals to give the home team a 4-3 advantage after 40 minutes of play. The Cougars increased their lead to 5-3 with Demers’ second goal of the game, a power play tally at the 5:36 mark of the third period but Archambault responded with his third power play to make it an one-goal game. That was as close as College Français would get as Champlain added a pair of insurance goals by Karl Prefontaine and Patrick Belzile.
Dubois picked up the win with a 23-save performance while Gauvreau also made 23 stops but was charged with the loss.
Unlike Game Three when College Français did not have a power play opportunity, the visitors scored three of their four goals with the man advantage while the Cougars connected in two of five power play chances.
By Mike Hickey
March 25, 2008 |
Montreal Canadiens
