LEWISTON — The last time the Lewiston Maineiacs saw Jean-Christophe Blanchard, he sat out the third period in the game where Lewiston came back from being down 5-0 to win 6-5.
In that game, former Maineiac Olivier Legault ran into the then-Moncton netminder, giving him a concussion.
Fast forward to Thursday night at the Colisee. Legault plays for Drummondville and Blanchard was back wearing a Victoriaville Tigres uniform after being traded for 20-year-old Josh Tordjman.
His game, however, and his penchant for playing well against Lewiston, had not changed.
Blanchard stopped 41 shots and added a huge save on the Maineiacs’ third shootout opportunity to help the lowly Tigres to a 4-3 shootout win over Lewiston in front of 2,093 at the Colisee.
“(Tordjman) was 20 and is one of the best goaltenders in the league,” said Victoriaville coach Stephan Lebeau. “It’s a lot of pressure for a kid like J.C. (Blanchard) to come back and fill his shoes. His first two starts with us were difficult, but tonight he really bounced back big time for us, and we can thank him for the two points tonight.”
“We had some great chances on the power play,” said Maineiacs’ assistant coach Ed Harding, “and Blanchard played fantastic. We outshot them 2-to-1. What can you do? The kid played well.”
On the other end, Lewiston backup Travis Fullerton got the start and he, too, performed well, particularly in the 4-on-4 overtime period, where the Tigres had multiple opportunities to win the game.
“It was a wide open overtime,” said Harding. “That’s what happens when you get 4-on-4 hockey. Travis did a heck of a job for us. I was very happy with him. I’ve got no fault. he stood in there and saved the ones he was supposed to save and made a couple of good, big saves for us as well.”
In the shootout, Mathieu Aubin scored on the Maineiacs’ first attempt with a shot to the low blocker side on Blanchard. The next two Victoriaville shooters, Alexandre Imbeault and Francis Charland, both scored on Fullerton. Jonathan Paiement deked Blanchard to the ice on Lewiston’s final attempt in the shootout, only to have the Tigres netminder tip the puck wide with his skate.
Stefan Chaput caught the Tigres’ defense napping at 8:43 of the first period when he snuck in behind them, took a perfect feed from Stefano Giliati and deked his way around Blanchad to put Lewiston ahead 1-0. Adam Ross tied things for Victoriaville at 9:56 on a short-side rebound with the Tigres on one of their six power plays.
“We scored early, we thought it was going to be easy,” said Harding. “The guys were trying to take the puck by themselves instead of moving the puck.”
The Maineiacs regained the lead with just eight seconds to play in the first frame when Mathieu Aubin slammed home his own rebound from the left post, but the Tigres countered at 7:21 of the second period when Alexandre Imbeault danced around Marc-Andre Daneau at the blue line a fired a rocket over Fullerton’s shoulder to make it 2-2.
“We were playing basically with three defensemen tonight,” said Harding, “and no offense to Marc-Andre Crete or to Marc-Andre Daneau. There was maybe a little bit of a turnover, maybe Daneau tried to do a little pokecheck.”
Victoriaville scored next to make it 3-2 when Matthew David swept a rebound past Fullerton at 2:39. It took Lewiston until the 10:33 mark to knot the score at three on Chaput’s second goal of the game.
“(The third Tigres goal) woke us up,” said Harding. “We played pretty well from the last 10 minutes on down.”
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