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Laval kicked off the 2026-27 season with a pair of home games against a division rival in Syracuse.  They struggled considerably in the opener but rebounded well with a six-goal effort the next day to pick up a split.

The Week That Was

Oct. 2: Crunch 2, Rocket 0 – Home openers are supposed to bring out some excitement in the home side, especially in front of a crowd as boisterous as Laval’s is.  Instead, the Rocket came out flat in the first and put up an even worse effort in the second period.  Thanks to Jacob Fowler, they were only down one going into the third but Nick Abruzzese doubled the Syracuse advantage on a power play.  That seemed to wake Laval up as they threw everything but the kitchen sink at the Crunch down the stretch but couldn’t beat Mads Sogaard.

Oct. 3: Rocket 6, Crunch 1 – In the rematch, Syracuse scored an early power play goal but this time, the home side was the better team.  They were rewarded for their efforts the rest of the way, scoring three times in each of the second and third periods to turn it into a rout.  Reilly Walsh had four points in the win while Sasha Pastujov had a pair of goals.  And, in typical Laval fashion, they racked up the penalty minutes as well at the end.

StatPack

Skaters:

# Player GP G A +/- SOG PIMS
3 Luke Mittelstadt 2 0 3 +1 4 2
4 Ethan Samson 2 0 0 0 1 4
6 Brett Berard 2 1 1 E 9 2
11 Tyler Thorpe 2 0 0 E 0 10
12 Owen Protz 2 0 0 E 1 2
18 Vincent Arseneau 1 0 0 E 2 4
19 Dillan Bentley 2 0 0 E 0 2
22 Alex Belzile 2 1 1 +1 4 2
25 Braden Hache 2 0 0 +1 1 4
27 Laurent Dauphin 2 1 0 +1 5 5
36 Sasha Pastujov 2 2 1 +1 13 0
41 Hunter McKown 2 0 0 E 2 0
44 Reilly Walsh 2 1 3 +1 5 0
48 Filip Mesar 2 0 0 E 2 0
49 Jared Davidson 1 0 0 E 1 0
62 Owen Beck 2 0 0 +1 4 0
64 David Reinbacher 2 0 1 +1 1 14
81 Xavier Simoneau 2 0 0 +1 2 14
88 Samuel Poulin 2 1 0 +1 3 0

Goalies:

# Player Record GAA SV% SO
1 Jacob Fowler 1-1-0 1.53 .945 0

Team Leaders:

Goals: Sasha Pastujov (2)
Assists: Mittelstadt/Walsh (3)
Points: Reilly Walsh (4)
+/-: 10 tied at (+1)
PIMS: Reinbacher/Simoneau (14)
Shots: Sasha Pastujov (13)

News and Notes

– Maksymillan Szuber wasn’t in the lineup but it wasn’t injury-related.  He was serving a two-game suspension for an incident in his final game last season with Tucson.

– Final cuts in training camp saw defensemen Kale McCallum and Jacob Dion along with forward Aleksandr Legkov go to ECHL Trois-Rivieres.  There likely will be another player or two sent down closer to when the ECHL season starts this week.

– Going back to last season, Hunter McKown hasn’t scored in 19 straight games.

Last Game’s Lines:

Pastujov – Dauphin – Belzile
Berard – Poulin – Beck
Simoneau – Bentley – Thorpe
Arseneau – McKown – Mesar

Mittelstadt – Reinbacher
Hache – Walsh
Protz – Samson

The Week Ahead

Saturday at Springfield – A two-week road trip kicks off against the farm team of the Blues.  The Thunderbirds added veteran T.J. Tynan (who should reach the top 25 in scoring in league history this season) and he’s pacing the way offensively early on alongside recent first-round pick Justin Carbonneau.  They’re a veteran-laden team after St. Louis sent several veterans through waivers in training camp, though those players are more bottom-six pieces.

Sunday at Hartford – The Wolf Pack lost their starting goalie to recall with Joonas Korpisalo’s injury and they could be down a centre as well after Joe Veleno’s injury for the Rangers over the weekend.  Cole Beaudoin is off to a hot start to his pro career after being acquired from Utah this summer while former Rocket blueliner Marc Del Gaizo is leading the way from the back end.  They picked up Taylor Raddysh after he cleared waivers in training camp; he’s now playing his first AHL games since the 2020-21 season.

Final Thought

For the majority of Friday’s home opener, the Rocket looked like they were a collection of players who hadn’t played together before.  The thing is, that’s exactly what they were.

A byproduct of the Habs having to play a second split-squad set late in the preseason is that AHL training camp started late.  So late, in fact, that it was decided that Laval wouldn’t play a single preseason game.  So, the opening line combinations and defence pairings were literally getting tested out for the first time in that game (practices don’t really count for testing lines and pairings).  Predictably, the results weren’t pretty.

It’s important to remember here that teams set their preseason schedules.  It was Montreal’s choice to do the second split squad and by extension, their choice to make it so that Laval couldn’t really play a preseason game.  Considering how Laval’s opener went, here’s hoping they learn their lesson and plan the 2027 preseason a little smarter to give the Rocket a chance to have a bit of success out of the gate.