NORFOLK — The Trois-Rivières Lions might have taken Friday night’s loss personally.
The defending ECHL Kelly Cup champions fired in three first-period goals en route to a 6-3 victory over the Admirals Saturday night at Norfolk Scope.
“We get two points out of a possible six (against the Worcester Railers) and then come in here and bounce back with a quality (5-2) win on Friday,” Admirals head coach Jeff Carr said. “It was disappointing to see. Haven’t seen a lackluster effort like that all year — even in our losses, we at least competed.
“We didn’t compete tonight.”
Trois-Rivières (17-19-0-3) and the Admirals (15-22-2-0), who met in the Eastern Conference North Division finals last May, are currently sixth and seventh in the division standings, respectively. The top four in the division will make the playoffs.
It was a tense affair from the opening puck drop — Trois-Rivières’ Sean Gulka dropped gloves and picked a fight with center Nathan Noel a little more than a minute into the first period.
Six minutes later, Riley Kidney staked Trois-Rivières to a 1-0 lead and then knocked in another midway through the period. With a little more than four minutes remaining until the first intermission, Jacob Dion fired in a one-timer to give the visitors a 3-0 lead.
Jaydon Dureau snapped in a shot high from the left circle over Lions goalie Vincent Deplessis’ right shoulder to pull the Admirals to within two goals midway through the second period. Anthony Poulin restored the Trois-Rivières advantage to 4-1 five minutes later, deflecting in a goal off a blast from outside the right circle by Dion.
Following a successful penalty kill, the Lions’ Anthony Beauregard flew a puck in for a score to boost the lead to four goals with less than two minutes remaining until the break.
During a power-play opportunity early in the third period, Brehdan Engum sniped in a low shot from the point to beat Duplessis stick-side and bring the Admirals to within 5-2. They were 0 for 4 on their previous man-advantage chances.
Tensions flared up again as players from both teams tussled thrice as the clock wound down in the third, followed by ensuing roughing penalties. With 1:31 remaining, Cédric Desruisseaux scored to expand the Trois-Rivières lead to 6-2, leading to many of the Scope crowd of 4,383 to head for the exits.
Moments later, Jack Jaunich slipped a goal between Duplessis’ legs for the final margin, but Trois-Rivières finished with a 37-14 edge in shots.
“We bounce back momentarily and have our worst game of the year — bar none,” Carr said. “And it’s unacceptable because of the way we lost. We didn’t shoot the puck. We’re just going to have to regroup here. It’ll be good to get on the road, and we’ll go from there.”
The Admirals next travel to Texas to play the Allen Americans for a three-game series, beginning at 8:10 p.m. Wednesday.