Montreal Canadiens ECHL Affiliate Has Rough Start to Postseason

The Montreal Canadiens haven’t had an ECHL affiliate for many years, and never had a local one.

That all changed this season when the Trois-Rivieres Lions were born. The ECHL franchise played its inaugural season this year and gave the Canadiens a second pro affiliate that the can use to develop young talent.

The ECHL is a pro league, but it is certainly run a little different than the NHL. Teams normally play series against each other during the regular season, making the schedule look more like a baseball season than a pro hockey one. That helps drastically reduce travel costs over a long season which helps keeps more teams afloat.

The Lions inaugural season got off to a bit of a rough start. They hosted the Newfoundland Growlers for three games back in October to kick off the season and they lost all three. They were outscored 13-5 in those three games and really got their first ever season off on the wrong foot.

They were able to gather themselves and put together a solid regular season. The Lions played in the North Division and would finish third overall in that group with a 34-29-6 record. This meant they made the playoffs and would start their journey on the road, against the Newfoundland Growlers.

The Growlers gave the Lions a pretty rude welcome to the regular season and they weren’t any more hospitable in the postseason.

Trois-Rivieres traveled to Newfoundland over the weekend to take on the Growlers in the first two games of the series. Newfoundland opened the scoring, but Trois-Rivieres pulled ahead 2-1 after the first. The Growlers responded with three in a row to take a 4-2 lead and wouldn’t look back, winning the opening game of the series 7-4.

Game 2 was less back and forth and a little more one-sided in favour of the hosts. Trois-Rivieres did open the scoring on a goal by Shawn St-Amant, but the Growlers answered back in a big way and pulled ahead 5-1 before winning 6-2.

The series shifts back to Trois-Rivieres this week for three games in a row. The Lions will play host on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights. They need to win at least two to stay alive in the series and likely need to win all three to have a chance of advancing to the second round.

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