SHAWINIGAN | The Shawinigan Cataracts are not dead. In another trench war, Daniel Renaud’s squad won 3-2 in overtime thanks to a goal from Mavrik Bourque to force a fifth and final game against the Remparts on Wednesday at the Videotron Center.
Bourque took advantage of a scrum in front of the net from William Rousseau to push the puck into the net and sow hysteria among the 4,017 spectators present at the Gervais Auto center.
It was his fourth goal of the playoffs, but his first point in his last three games.
BLOW FOR BLOW
The Cataractes had taken the lead after 20 minutes on a goal by Pierrick Dubé, but the Remparts came back strong in the second period with two unanswered goals, the work of Zachary Gravel and Vsevolod Komarov.
It was therefore to be expected that Shawinigan would come out with the knife between his teeth in third and that is exactly what happened. In the second minute of play, defender Angus Booth blew the roof off center Gervais Auto by beating William Rousseau with a slapshot that made it 2-2.
The locals increased the pressure, dominating the Remparts in most facets of the game without being able to thwart a Rousseau who, once again, was at the top of his game. The Trois-Rivières goalkeeper notably deprived captain Mavrik Bourque of a certain goal when he stretched the pad in extremis.
On the other side, the Remparts were much less threatening. However, Nathan Gaucher came close to being the hero late in the period, but his shot hit the crossbar behind Antoine Coulombe.
In the end, both goalkeepers were solid again. Rousseau made 43 saves while Coulombe blocked 39 of 41 pucks aimed at him.
THE ISLANDERS ARE WAITING
In the other semi-final series, the Charlottetown Islanders completed the job in four games on Monday night by winning 4-3 against the Sherbrooke Phoenix. This is the first final in 19 years for the team from Prince Edward Island.
