Foreurs make history while Garland, Wildcats bury Mooseheads in pair of emotional game 7s

Finally, semi-final matchups are set in the QMJHL, and it took some heroics to do it.

Alexis Pépin buried a 2-on-1 with Pierre-Maxime Poudrier to give the Val-d’Or Foreurs a 4-3 win in game 7 of their series against the Baie-Comeau Drakkar.

The end of the game was marred by a fight between Baie-Comeau's Chad Pietroniro and Val-d'Or's Jeremy Fraser. The fight happened after the final buzzer while the Foreurs were waiting for the customary post-series hand shakes to take place. The Drakkar were apparently upset with Fraser's celebration while passing their bench on the game winner. They also reportedly took umbrage with a clip the Foreurs showed on the video scoreboard of goalie Philippe Cadorette smashing his stick during their playoff game last season which they also lost.

Both teams left the ice without ever shaking hands.

The Foreurs, who escaped getting swept in the series in double overtime in game 4, clawed all the way back to win games 5 and 6, and won game 7 Tuesday 4-3 on the road in Baie-Comeau.

The hero, Pépin, was acquired from the Gatineau Olympiques at this year’s mid-season trading period, an equalizer deal of sorts to the trade of last year’s playoff leading scorer, Louick Marcotte, to the Olympiques.

The Val-d’Or Foreurs are the kryptonite of the Baie-Comeau Drakkar, and it was déjà vu from a year ago at the Centre Henry-Léonard.

A year ago, in the QMJHL finals, Val-d’Or defeated Baie-Comeau on home ice in game 7 by the same 4-3 score in the President’s Cup finals. That time, it was a goal in the last minute by Anthony Mantha after the Drakkar had come all the way back to tie the score.

This time, the Foreurs came back from 3-1 down after two periods, and Poudrier and Shawn Ouellette-St-Amant notched goals in the third frame to tie the score.

Poudrier opened the scoring in the first, before Frédéric Gamelin would answer back for the Drakkar 31 seconds later. Jérémy Gregoire got his tenth of the playoffs in a solo effort before assisting Vaclav Karabacek’s last minute marker to cap off a three-point first at 3-1 road side. A scoreless second period set up the heroics of the final stanza.

The Foreurs became just the fifth team to win a series after spotting the other team the first three games. The last time a QMJHL team came back from a 3-0 deficit, the win was also in overtime, and it featured two teams that, up until Tuesday, were in the post-season.

In 2012, the Halifax Mooseheads defeated the Quebec Remparts in game seven overtime on a goal by Jonathan Drouin and an impressive four-goal effort by Cam Critchlow.

The Foreurs will move on and take on the league’s number one seed, the Rimouski Oceanic, in what will feature the league’s regular season champion against the defending President’s Cup champion. That series starts Friday at the Colisée Financière Sun Life in Rimouski.

Wildcats come away with game 7 win in series of momentum swings

Meanwhile, in Moncton, Conor Garland and the Moncton Wildcats came to play in game 7, and in a series that featured massive momentum swings, Moncton got the last laugh with a 6-3 doubling of the Halifax Mooseheads to win their best-of-seven series 4-3.

Garland assisted five Wildcat goals, all except the empty net marker by Stephen Johnson to seal the deal, as Moncton prevailed.

“I just try to make the right play at the right time,” Garland said after the game. “I play with great players and I just try to feed them when they get open. Guys are getting open and they’re burying them so it’s an easy job.”

The biggest momentum shift of the game, and ultimately the series, was a three-goal second period featuring goals from Johnson, Cam Askew and Zack MacEwen that did the Mooseheads in. The Wildcats outshot Halifax 16-5 in the middle stanza.

The story of the series was the play of Garland and his linemate, defending CHL player of the week Ivan Barbashev. Garland had 17 points in the series, while Barbashev had 18 of his own. The Mooseheads tried many different strategies to get the pair off their game, but nothing worked.

The Wildcats came back to win the series after dropping the first two games at home in Moncton to the Mooseheads, a pair of games where Halifax dominated in stretches, but the Wildcats were able to get three wins on the “road”, with game 5 in Fredericton, before dropping game 6.

Moncton now has a date with the Memorial Cup host Quebec Remparts in a series that starts Thursday at the Moncton Coliseum.