Just say Blainbriand.

Armada, meet thy ballbusters: Well, that's a headline that is sure to bite me where it hurts in a future game, but these two pretty boxscores can stand alone in this post and I don't have to feel guilty just yet:

GOALS	1	2	3	OT	Total
BLAINVILLE-BOISBRIAND	2	2	2	0	6
DRUMMONDVILLE	3	2	1	1	7

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
DRUMMONDVILLE	1	2	0	3
BLAINVILLE-BOISBRIAND	0	2	0	2

So pretty.

Drummondville (Sunday): Weber, Balmelli, Archambault, Gauthier, Malouin, Verrier (2). Murray and Brouillard the forward with two assists each.
Blainbriand (Sunday): Paquette (3), Hodhod, Clapperton, Sanche.

Drummondville (yesterday): Boudens, Caouette, Verrier.
Blainbriand (yesterday): Sanche, Giroux.

Last night, aside from watching Sportsnet scramble for material with Ouellet sitting this game out on the sidelines, I enjoyed the talents of the budding hockey analyst that is the Montreal Canadiens' P.K. Subban. He had (really) good insight, predicted a number of things before they happened, and Nikolas Brouillard even got praise for his "Subbie-doo" spin-o-rama at the blueline. Now if only P.K. could head over to the MATV studios (formerly VOX) that is apparently broadcasting the Gatineau game on Friday...

Things that actually happened in the game (or before): Jérémie Malouin gets the C on his jersey for the rest of the season (Charles-David Beaudoin with the A), Matt Boudens has this wicked point streak with all these goals scattered everywhere (five games now), the jury is still out on Guindon's super-hero nickname (37 saves plus cool, calm collectedness in the face of never-ending 5 on 3's), it turns out Balmelli can hold his own in a fight?!, a Drummondville player is finally in the league's top-20 in scoring (Verrier) who has recorded at least a point in the last seven games, and the Volts are unbeaten in regulation in their last five games. They are also 7-2-0-1 in their last ten games.

Next: Gatineau. They were also in action last night and lost to Baie-Comeau, 6-3.

Next next: Québec, Sherbrooke, Baie-Comeau, Gatineau again, Sherbrooke in Sherbrooke, and then holiday time.

Alumni news and notes: Some people are already thinking about holiday time!

The McGill Redmen had an interesting Movember campaign (kinda NSFW, actually), and picked up wins against Ryerson and RMC this weekend. Ex-Volts aplenty in the latter game's scoresheet. They now break for the holidays and will be back to host Carleton on January 4th, 2013.

Otherwise, this week is full of zZzZz's, aside from the fact that already six days ago Mike Hoffman picked up a goal and two assists, whereas his opponent and former teammate Sean Couturier got an assist, a -2, and eight shots on net. Binghamton had the upper hand in this game over Adirondack, 7-4.

#AskBoucher

Look! Former Volts' coach Guy Boucher chatted with fans this morning!

Of course he's multitasking by drawing up plays at the same time. Were you really surprised by that? Honestly.


Entire transcript is here. Some highlights:

1. #AskBoucher how was it to be probably one of the only people to slap shot the 1st pitch at a baseball game? #BoltsAtTheBallpark
   — Michelle Spring (@MichelleSpring6) 3 hours ago 

   @MichelleSpring6 Major relief when it was done, but it was a lot of fun. It was actually a dare from Joe Maddon ^GB #AskBoucher — Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) 2 hours ago  

   #AskBoucher if you could pick any nhl player on your team why and who?  — justin leger (@justinleger4) 3 hours ago  

   @justinleger4 The ones I got right now ^GB #AskBoucher — Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) 2 hours ago 

   @tblightning We need a sub on my beer league team, can you send someone over? I'm sure someone has some time to kill. #askboucher  — Ol' Man Jesse (@jdreade) 2 hours ago 

   @jdreade I can send assistant coach Marty Raymond and Dan Lacroix and Nigel. They're on their way ^GB #AskBoucher — Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) 2 hours ago

Also flustered little ol' me:

1. @TBLightning a few players you've coached are now playing for your alma mater. have you been to any games at mcconnell lately? #askboucher
   — Kathy K (@czechtacular) 2 hours ago 

   @czechtacular I keep up with what's going on but I haven't been to any games lately. Last one I watched was Nat'l Champ game ^GB #AskBoucher — Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) 2 hours ago

And the infamous how-you-got-the-scar question:

I'll give you two guesses: either my tough wife or a shark fight. You pick! One of them put me in my place! ^GB #AskBoucher

If I had problems with the 140 character limit (in addition to not keysmashing all over Twitter), I'd assume that he...probably never wants to do this again. Remember that time he took up an entire intermission's worth on VOX with a press conference and they had to cut him off to get back to the game on time? Fun times.

Voltigeurs news: Oh right, there was also a game last night.

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
P.E.I.	1	0	0	1
Drummondville	1	2	2	5

PEI: Marcotte.
Drummondville: Milson (2), Murray, Malouin (2). Alliteration goals for the win (literally).

Guindon made 22 saves. Graham was back as his backup, seemingly recovered from his injuries.

Jérôme Verrier, in addition to picking up two helpers last night, made it onto the Q site. Read about Drummondville's leading scorer (en français) here.

Around the league: It would appear our trading BFFs have a new head coach.

Stephane Leroux@StephRDSJunior

Officiel Danny Dupont est le nouvel entraineur chef du #Titan contrat de 3 ans

Also, Étienne Boutet is apparently the new Glen Metropolit, picking up an assist essentially right after being traded from Rimouski to Gatineau and merely having to cross over one dressing room to suit up for the game.

Roundup time!

Friday:

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
DRUMMONDVILLE	2	3	0	5
RIMOUSKI	3	1	3	7

Drummondville: Malouin (2), Boudens, Verrier (2).
Rimouski: Beauvillier, Gauthier, DeLuca, Loiseau (2), Oke, Légaré.

Guindon made 22 saves. Meanwhile, Graham moved off the bench entirely (still bothered by an injury) and Kevin Darveau took the backup spot.

Yesterday:

GOALS 1 2 3 Total DRUMMONDVILLE 1 0 4 5 VICTORIAVILLE 2 0 0 2

Victoriaville: Diaby, Halley.Drummondville: Brouillard the younger, Malouin, Verrier (2), Boudens. Caouette picked up two assists.

Twenty-seven stops made by Guindon this time.

Let's be honest, I literally missed this entire weekend (I feel like yesterday was Friday). You probably know more about these games than I do.

One thing I do know: PEI tomorrow!

PEI: 13-9-2-0, 28 points, 11th in the league, 97 GF, 88 GA, lost seven of their last ten, and the Ben Duffy/Josh Currie duo takes up two-thirds of the top 3 in league scoring (Grigo butted in the middle). Their netminder, Antoine Bibeau, has a GAA that is fourth-best in the league, 2.68, with a .915 SV%.

Drummondville: 14-12-0-0, 28 points, 9th in the league, 84 GF, 91 GA, are now up to W's in five of their last seven games, Verrier is on a tear with four goals in his last two, and Guindon has an 3.33 GAA and .870 SV%.

Head-to-head: Drummondville won both games against the team that will soon be formerly known as the Rocket, 4-2 over a year ago on November 2nd and 4-3 in overtime, two October 16ths ago. The winning goal at that time was scored by Max Villemaire.

Speaking of which: How is that guy doing, you might ask? One might expect the following stat to stand out: PIM. He has only played 5 games for Gwinnett (currently on reserve) and already has 22 minutes spent in that sin-bin.

Sean Couturier scored two goals this weekend and Charles Landry was finally called up to Syracuse only to be AWOL from the statsheet, probably having to settle for just watching the Crunch (and Ondrej Palat) beat both Mike Hoffman's Senators and Raman Hrabarenka's Devils before going on to thump the Worcester Sharks 6-1. Other notables: the only Bulldogs' goal to be scored yesterday was assisted by Gabriel Dumont, Yannick Riendeau scored and added an assist in a 6-3 Stockton win over Bakersfield, both Ryan McKiernan and Marc-Olivier Vachon (from McKiernan and Jonathan Brunelle, no less) scored in a 3-2 shootout win over Toronto, and Rémi Blanchard scored both goals in a 6-2 losing cause to Marc-Antoine Desnoyers (4 assists) and the UNB Varsity Reds yesterday.

Black (and red) Friday

Whoa! Where the hell have I been?

Here, for one. Have some teaser shots from the game (not for stealing purposes, obviously):

The rest can be found over at All Habs.

Two nights previous:

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
DRUMMONDVILLE	1	0	2	3
BLAINVILLE-BOISBRIAND	1	2	3	6

Drummondville: Archambault (2), Auger.
Blainbriand: Clapperton, Martel (2), Sanche, Roy (2).

This game also featured the loss of Domenic Graham to an undisclosed lower-body injury. (This goalie drama is starting to look a little too Montreal Canadiens to me, especially every time someone quotes Duhamel as saying there is no superior. Okay then.)

The night before that, Drummondville seemed to take into account my warning message about Gatineau. (Just kidding, my mom doesn't even read this blog.)

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
GATINEAU	0	2	0	2
DRUMMONDVILLE	2	1	2	5

Sixty percent of the Volts' goals were scored on the power play, but I won't disclose the amount of power plays they actually had, just to make it look better. Boom.

Drummondville: Malouin, Gauthier, Archambault (2), Brouillard the elder.
Gatineau: Burke, Chapman.

And now for tonight:

Rimouski: 13-8-1-3, 30 points, 5th in the league, 84 GF, 86 GA, have a one-game winning streak just like Drummondville, and Peter Trainor and Scott Oke (city) each have over 30 points this year. Meanwhile, Carl Hozjan has a GAA of 2.83 with a .911 SV% as his counterpart Philippe Desrosiers has a 3.34 GAA with a .902 SV%.

Drummondville: 13-11-0-0, 26 points, 9th in the league, 74 GF, 82 GA, have won four of their last five games, Verrier has taken the lead in points with 29 in 24 games (Brouillard the elder is suffering from a concussion), and Guindon's stats are now 3.14 GAA and .874 SV%.

Around the league: So Quebec decided to quit hogging three Euros and traded one...for another Euro.

2012-11-21	Rouyn-Noranda	Québec	Kamaev, Denis (1994-03-06)	Rd_2, 2013 (Chi)
	Québec	Rouyn-Noranda	Kucherov, Nikita (1993-06-17)

But there is a method to their madness. Sometimes.

2012-11-21	Québec	Sherbrooke	Kamaev, Denis (1994-03-06)	Rd_1, EURO 2014
	Sherbrooke	Québec		Rd_5, 2013 Rd_1, EURO 2014

Speaking of Patrick, tonight is already his 500th game as head coach. I wonder if his buddy Dutil made him a cake.

All quiet on the Alumni front: Somebody do something! (Namely, can Hamilton win a game sometime this month?) UPEI faces off against UNB, Concordia is at Nipissing (no, I do not have a potty mouth. Not this time, anyway), Ryerson plays UQTR and Toronto and McGill have a Centraide Charity game planned at McConnell Arena tonight. Scott Howes and the Allen Americans have a rematch against the Arizona Sundogs in the CHL, while the ECHL's Florida and Cincy both have games tonight (for you Landry and Bouvet-Morrissette fans). Sean Couturier is in action against Norfolk, Palat and Hoffman face off, and it's a little harder to verify goalie-starts but Jake Allen should at least be within a hundred foot radius of the net as Peoria take on Milwaukee. No Hamilton until Sunday afternoon.

EDIT: Apparently Derick Brassard has signed in Austria, as per Aaron Portzline. His Columbus Blue Jackets just lost the All-Star Game due to the lockout.

Stuck in the middle with you...

Good morning-soon-to-be-afternoon, and here are the current standings in the Q:

Tonight's opponent is Gatineau. They are currently free-falling in the standings, having lost three in a row and seven of their last ten.

Easy pickings? Not necessarily!

In light of this game and what it might mean, I started getting a little nit-picky with the above table and the highlighted number 10 spot, and how it breaks down on either side of the grey line. Some of it is a little disconcerting, if looked at under a certain context. But this is just me being cautious if not somewhat cynical considering the fact that I remember when Gatineau-Drummondville meant a lot more than it does currently, which is important to keep in mind.

Drummondville has won 11 of their 21 games this season. They are at exactly .500 in their last 10. They could fall to .500 overall, should tonight continue a certain trend.

Of the 21 games played, 11 of them have been decided by one goal. With the exception of one 4-3 loss against #theshawi, none of the Volts' losses to teams 11-18 in the standings are part of these 11. In fact, they can even be classified as blowouts. The most recent case was, of course, Chicoutimi (who return to the CMD on Sunday). In other words, while no one says they're going to underestimate a number 16, if the Olympiques even get a hint of the gas pedal at any point during this game, they have good odds of shoving it to the ground, handing the Volts another embarrassment.

Meanwhile...

Eight of the eleven one-goal games have been wins, and while the value of two points is not being questioned, the fact that over half of those eight one-goal games have been wins against teams 11-18 deters a little from the final score in each of them. For example: the 5-4 "win" against Bathurst on Sunday. As for that gas pedal...Drummondville simply let go of that one when they should have been as unforgiving as the Saguenéens et cie.

No need to panic, at least not just yet. The season is barely a quarter of the way through, after all. But to this cautious if not cynical bystander, tonight's matchup is just as crucial as any in March.

Gatineau: 6-12-1-0, 13 points, 16th in the league, 53 GF, 83 GA, lost three in a row, Martin Reway has 20 points in 19 games, Michael Nishi is the main goaltender for that club with a 4.13 GAA and .874 SV%.

Drummondville: 11-10-0-0, 22 points, 10th in the league, 62 GF, 71 GA, two wins in a row, M-O Brouillard still leads with 26 points in 21 games followed by Verrier with 22 points, rookie goaltender Louis-Philip Guindon is getting the start tonight after a two-game absence, he stands at a 3.36 GAA and .872 SV%. For his part, Domenic Graham has a .857 SV% and a 3.23 GAA.

And the gloves come off.

Weekend wrap-up: Atlantic visits appear to be better than Atlantic roadtrips.

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
SAINT JOHN	0	2	0	2
DRUMMONDVILLE	0	2	4	6

This is the first win against Saint John since January 15th, 2011. Also, the first regulation win against them since September 25th, 2010. In either case, the Montreal Junior still existed the last time Drummondville beat Saint John, which should give away enough.

Drummondville: On this scoring sheet we have Archambault, Caouette, Gauthier (2), and M-O Brouillard (2).
Saint John: Goals scored by Huberdeau and Tesink.

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
ACADIE-BATHURST	0	2	2	4
DRUMMONDVILLE	4	1	0	5

This game was originally 5-0, but we'll ignore that because:

POWER PLAY
ACADIE-BATHURST	3 / 6
DRUMMONDVILLE	5 / 7

Look at the shiny new power play!

Drummondville: The only goal the Brouillards had no part in was Vermette's game-winning blast from the point. Otherwise they both scored, and Archambault and Verrier had the others.
Bathurst: Lalancette (2), he-who-doesn't-take-penalties (O'Brien), and Stevens.

Graham was in net for both games (!) and made a combined 42 saves out of 48. In the Saint John game, Drummondville outshot their opponents 44-17 and also topped Bathurst in that category, 44-31. Whoever this team is (minus the part about not maintaining a 5-goal lead), I like them.

Fighty time: Check out yesterday's spirited tilt between Alec Jon Banville of Bathurst and the Volts' 16-year old rookie Joey Ratelle:



Ding ding!

Concern for Geoffrion: As you have no doubt heard by now, Blake Geoffrion was the main story of Friday night's game between the Hamilton Bulldogs and Syracuse Crunch.

The NHL club issued a statement Saturday saying the 24-year-old underwent surgery for a depressed skull fracture and is expected to make a full recovery. Geoffrion, playing for the Hamilton Bulldogs in a game held at the Bell Centre, was caught with his head down as he drove along the boards by Syracuse Crunch defenceman Jean-Philippe Côté in the first period. Geoffrion was bleeding and holding his hands to his face when he skated off the ice to go to the dressing room. - TheSpec.com

At last check, he has been moved out of intensive care. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs' Facebook page is still offering fans the chance to send their well-wishes to Blake as he recovers from his injury. Get well soon, Blake!

In what concerns the scoresheet of that game and former Voltigeurs, Ondrej Palat was named second star, picking up two assists in the 4-1 win and posted a strong performance even aside from that. For his part, Gabriel Dumont got a helper on the lone goal by Hamilton.

This week: The CMD plays host to the Gatineau Olympiques on Thursday. Then the Volts make a visit to Boisbriand on Friday. Back home for Chicoutimi on Sunday. Get 'er done!

Alumni?: Quiet weekend, aside from the Hamiltonian/Syracusian aspect of things. Scott(y) Howes got the game-winner in a come-from-behind Allen Americans' win Saturday while Charles Landry scored his first of the season for the Florida Everblades in a losing cause, 7-6 against Gwinnett.

Ex-Volts face off tonight!

Syracuse Crunch (6-1-1-1, 2nd in the Eastern Conference, 1st in East Division) @ Hamilton Bulldogs (4-3-1-1, 10th in the Western Conference, 4th in North Division), 7:30 p.m., Bell Centre, Montreal.

Why you might care: If you are a loyal reader of this blog, you should perhaps not be asking this question. Former Drummondville Voltigeurs Frédéric St-Denis and Gabriel Dumont represent the "home" team Bulldogs in the arena their higher-level counterparts should have occupied for over a month and a half now and Ondrej Palat plays for Syracuse, who was Norfolk last year, and don't worry even I still can't even wrap my head around that part.

Other notables: Mark Barberio decided to lead the league's defensemen offensively last year. Wildcats' fan or not (and I have been both, in 2006 and 2010 respectively) that's interesting to know. Jean-Philippe Côté, for all you retro 00's Habs' fans, is on this team now, and makes his return to the Bell Centre tonight. Ditto for former Bulldogs J.T. Wyman and Eric Neilson. Philip-Michaël Devos and Danick Gauthier are also members of the Crunch.

Stats & stuff: Blake "Bambam" Geoffrion leads the Bulldogs with four goals, two assists this season. Brendan Gallagher, to the surprise of basically no one, leads the rookies with three goals, three assists. Dumont has two goals and one assist while St-Denis has the reverse. The latter also leads the team with a +5 (speaking of non-shockers).

Cory Conacher is 5th in league scoring with six goals and as many assists in 9 games. Palat is Mr. Assist on the team with 9, adding one goal, which is third on the Crunch and over a point per game. Barberio has fallen to 14th in league defensemen with at least 3 NHLers standing in his way. Damn that lockout!

Streaking: Syracuse is unbeaten in their last 3, including the last game over the Bulldogs, 3-0. Hamilton recently split a home-and-home with Rochester, and both games were decided by a goal. Geoffrion and Gallagher were the main stars of the 4-3 (W) scoresheet.

Updates from this game to come soon, or if you're unfortunate enough to follow me on Twitter, sooner rather than later.