Photo: Laurent Corbeil/l’Arena du Rocket Inc.
The Laval Rocket drew first blood in the North Division semifinals with a 3-1 win over Toronto at Place Bell on Wednesday night.
Game 2 of the best-of-five series is Friday night.
Florian Xhekaj opened the scoring 11:44 into the contest, intercepting a puck off the stick of Michael Pezzetta and beating Marlies netminder Dennis Hildeby from between the circles.
The lead was extended to 2-0 at 6:15 of the third period as the Rocket forced another turnover in the Toronto zone and Sean Farrell fed Joshua Roy, who netted his fifth career playoff goal.
The Marlies got on the board with 5:49 remaining when Luke Haymes’ shot hit Rocket goaltender Kaapo Kähkönen, ricocheted off Cédric Paré in front and bounced in.
Samuel Blais finished off the win, stealing the puck at the Toronto blue line and tucking it into the open net with 1:27 to go.
Kähkönen finished with 20 saves to earn the win. Hildeby (1-1) stopped 23 of 25 shots in his second start of the postseason.
(Laval leads series, 1-0)
Game 1 – Wed., Apr. 29 – LAVAL 3, Toronto 1
Game 2 – Fri., May 1 – Toronto at Laval, 7:00
Game 3 – Sun., May 3 – Laval at Toronto, 4:00
*Game 4 – Tue., May 5 – Laval at Toronto, 7:00
*Game 5 – Fri., May 8 – Toronto at Laval, 7:00
*if necessary… All times Eastern
