A raucous Place Bell crowd welcomed Calder Cup Playoff hockey to Laval on Thursday night, and the hometown Rocket obliged with a 4-1 win over Syracuse to take a 2-1 series lead in their North Division semifinal.
Former Crunch forwards Danick Martel and Cedric Paquette scored power-play goals for Laval and Cayden Primeau (2-0) finished with 22 saves to put the Rocket one win away from advancing.
Laval hosts Game 4 on Saturday afternoon.
Paquette’s goal with 11:11 to play in the third period snapped a 1-1 tie, and J.S. Dea and Louie Belpedio added empty-netters in the final two minutes of regulation to seal the win.
Remi Elie scored the Crunch goal, and Max Lagace (1-2) turned aside 23 of 25 shots.
Attendance for the first home playoff game in Rocket franchise history was 9,873.
North Division Semifinals – Series “K” (best-of-5)
N2-Syracuse Crunch vs. N3-Laval Rocket
Game 1 – Fri., May 6 – SYRACUSE 5, Laval 3
Game 2 – Sat., May 7 – Laval 3, SYRACUSE 2
Game 3 – Thu., May 12 – LAVAL 4, Syracuse 1
Game 4 – Sat., May 14 – Syracuse at Laval, 3:00
*Game 5 – Tue., May 17 – Laval at Syracuse, 7:00
*if necessary… All times Eastern
