Cape Breton Screaming Eagles

Cape Breton’s Maximilien LeSieur opened scoring when the puck found its way through the legs of Val-d’Or goalie Raffaele D’Orso 5:35 into the match. But the Foreurs’ Steven Verrilli knotted things up 1-1 when he scored on Screaming Eagles netminder Olivier Roy off the faceoff at 9:44, after which Eagles general manager and head coach Mario Durocher called a timeout.

“Val-d’Or is probably the fastest team we saw so far and I think we were a bit on their heels in the first period,” said Durocher. “So I just had to ask our guys to get our legs going to be able to skate with those guys. They kind of over-skated us in the first period.”

The home team delivered, owning the second stanza, with Viktor Hertzberg picking up the rebound to score his ninth of the season at 15:41 and his teammate Taylor MacDougall finding the back of the net just 47 second later, giving the Screaming Eagles the 3-1 lead after 40 minutes.

Stephen Horyl improved Cape Breton’s lead to 4-1 when he netted one on the rebound 7:46 into the third frame with his 14th goal of the season, to become the Screaming Eagles’ leading goal scorer.

Foreurs defenceman Shawn Morton-Boutin cut the Eagles’ lead when he put the puck over Roy’s shoulder at the 12:09 mark, but Cape Breton’s Francis Meilleur gave his team back the three-goal lead when he scored his first goal of the season at 14:20 off a pass by Luke Adam.

“It’s a relief,” Meilleur said of his first marker of 2009-10. “I was waiting for that. I saw Luke coming off the boards. I saw the play and I thought he was going to give me the puck and he did. It was a good pass and I shot at the net. It made it through there and it went in.”

Durocher said his squad did a decent job of shutting down Val-d’Or’s three big “offensive defencemen” Simon Lacroix, Marco Scandella and Morton-Boutin, despite Morton-Boutin’s one goal.

“We blocked some good shots from those defencemen,” said Durocher.

“And when we were able to put the puck behind those defencemen using our speed, we found we were able to do something good offensively. It was one of our good games I think.”

Both teams had nine shots on goal in the first period, but Cape Breton outshot Val-d’Or 41-18 overall. Neither team scored on the power play, of four chances for the Screaming Eagles and three for the Foreurs.

Roy’s record improved to 8-7 with the win, while D’Orso’s record fell to 1-4 with the loss.

The Eagles must now prepare for a grueling five-game road trip, with three games in three nights from Thursday to Saturday in Gatineau, -d’Or and Rouyn-Noranda, and again Nov. 21-22 in Bathurst and Moncton.

NOTES: Durocher said Michael Ward (shoulder) won’t play during the road trip and will be re-assessed when they return. Patrick Lapostolle (leg) will continue to be considered day-to-day.

gmacvicar@cbpost.com