After another loss in a game they were minutes away from winning on Wednesday night, the Laval Rocket rolled into a two-game weekend series with the Rochester Americans desperately seeking a way to right the ship. The Rocket hadn’t played badly in previous games, but a distinct lack of finish was hampering their overall strong efforts.
J.-F. Houle still sought to shake up the lineup in order to achieve those results, starting with a promotion of Xavier Simoneau to the first line along with Brandon Gignac and Rafaël Harvey-Pinard. Jesse Ylönen formed a new trio with Anthony Richard and Mitchell Stephens on line two, and the fourth line saw Peter Abbandonato and Danick Martel join the fray.