Philippe Sanche scored the lone shootout goal as the visiting Blainville-Boisbriand Armada edged the Charlottetown Islanders 4-3 Friday night at Eastlink Centre.
Charlottetown losses its first home game in six games and drops to 20-19-1-2 on the season. The Armada improves to 24-11-1-4.
Islanders assistant captain Ross Johnston took the positives out of the game.
“We played a hard 60 minutes. We bent a few times but didn’t break, but obviously when it gets to a shootout it can go either way.”
The Islanders entered the third period with a 3-2 lead and held a 12-0-0-0 record when leading after two periods, prior to the game.
Blainville’s Samuel Tremblay tied the game at 9:39 with plenty of hockey left to play.
“They were pushing and pushing,” said Johnston. “And sooner or later when you make a mistake they will capitalize, but those happen during a game. That went in and there’s not much we can do about that.
The team showed a great effort and it doesn’t matter that a five-game winning streak at home was snapped, said Johnston.
“I’m not really going to get into the winning streak, losing streak type thing. We just have to start a new one tomorrow night.”
The Armada opened the scoring at the 4:41 mark of the first period with a power play goal from Marc-Antoine Bouillon for his 11th goal of the season. Danick Martel and Nikita Jevpalovs drew assists.
Less than a minute later at the 5:27 mark, Alexandre Goulet buried his team-leading 23rd goal of the season to tie the game. Filip Chlapik drew the lone assist.
Shots were 10-9 in favour of Blainville-Boisbriand.
In the second period, Johnston gave the Islanders a 2-1 lead, firing a wrist shot past Armada goalie Samuel Montembeault for his third goal of the season at 3:44. Dexter Weber and Quinn O’Brien drew assists.
The Armada tied the game with Jevpalovs scoring his 30th goal of the season at 12:49 with Martel and Bureau-Blais drawing assists.
On a power play, Goulet scored his second of the game at 15:48 to give the Islanders a 3-2 lead after receiving a nice back-door pass from Daniel Sprong. Chlapik drew the second assist.
Shots were 12-10 in favour of the Armada.
Tremblay’s fifth of the season was the lone goal in the third period which forced the game into overtime and the eventual shootout. Olivier Schingh-Gomez and Bureau-Blais drew assists. Shots were 7-5 Armada.
Charlottetown had a 3-2 shot advantage in the extra five-minute frame.
Goulet, Sprong and Chlapik were held scoreless in the shootout. Martel and Jevpalovs were scoreless before Sanche faked a slap shot and then let a snap shot go beating Islanders goalie Mason McDonald glove side to secure the Armada win.
Montembeault made 24 saves in the win for Blainville-Boisbriand. McDonald made 28 saves in the loss for Charlottetown.
The Islanders host the Gatineau Olympiques tomorrow night.
“They’re a team that’s looking to come out with a big (second) half,” said Johnston. “It’s a great test for us to find out where we are. All we got to do is come out hard play like we did tonight.”
Puck drops at 7 p.m.
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