Montreal Canadiens: Dale Weise contributes offensively

Dale Weise is making the best of his time with the Laval Rocket after being sent down by the Montreal Canadiens scoring in his debut game.

Good news and bad news for the Laval Rocket and Montreal Canadiens. The bad news is the team lost another game dropping a 4-2 decision at the hands of the Syracuse Crunch. That marks their seventh loss of February and 33rd of the season (including five overtime and four shootout losses). The good news is for both club levels is Dale Weise and how he chipped in on the game scoring the second goal for Laval.

There wasn’t too much of a dominant presence from the Crunch to start the game. However, it only took them 50 seconds to take a 2-0 lead. Gabriel Dumont got the first of the night at the 15:54 mark while Corey Conacher potted in his 18th of the season at 16:44. The Rocket didn’t sit back though quickly responding to the deficit via Maxim Lamarche’s second goal of the season.

The second period got a little gritty if you will. Alexander Volkov scored to make it 3-1 and took a tripping penalty a little over a minute later. It was a nice looking powerplay and got the Crunch moving. Alex Belzile made a touch pass to Jake Evans from the left circle who found Weise in front of the net for the deflection past Eddie Pasquale.

Dominik Masin didn’t do himself any favours by sliding out to challenge Evans outside of the crease. Jan Rutta was also there to defend the front of the net, but Weise stayed his ground and tracked the puck well to score.

Daniel Audette and Conacher got into afterwards dropping the gloves after the latter’s roughness pushed Audette to the brink. The Rocket got into some more penalty trouble in the third via Karl Alzner who went off for hooking. Unfortunately, Syracuse capitalized on that powerplay opportunity with Alex Barre-Boulet scoring his 23rd of the season.

Laval tried their best to generate more, but each of their efforts were stopped. The final buzzer went off, and it was another loss.

The Rocket’s next game is Friday against the Manitoba Moose. Weise likely remains with the team until after the trade deadline which is a boost for them given his role on the powerplay as the net-front presence as well as the intangibles he brings to the team.

It’ll be interesting to see what else he does until Monday. Weise playing well and confidently will be good for the Montreal Canadiens so he can return on a high ready to go for a late-season push.