QUEBEC CITY — The Quebec Remparts may not have come in here as champions. But they did come in pretty hot, having barely lost the QMJHL championship game in Game 7 to Rimouski early this week, a contest that went to double overtime.
That, in and of itself, separates Phillippe Boucher’s Quebec team from the past two MasterCard Memorial Cup host teams, Saskatoon and London. Both the Blades and Knights lost early in their respective league playoffs the year they hosted, and were anything but in mid-season form when the Memorial Cup competition rolled around.
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On Friday night, the Remparts demonstrated their comparative readiness, starting this year’s tournament in fine style by beating the WHL champion Kelowna Rockets 4-3 in a terrifically entertaining game to kick off the 97th Memorial Cup.
Quebec’s stars, notably goalie Zach Fucale and wingers Adam Erne and Anthony Duclair, delivered just as Boucher hoped they would as he put this team together over the past 12 months knowing it would be one of the four teams in this tournament. The Remparts brought energy and quickness to Le Colisée from the opening puck drop, received lots of energy from small forwards Vladimir Tkachev and Dmytro Timashov, got three goals from their blue-line corps and finally received timely saves from Fucale in the dying moments to preserve the win, the first opening night triumph by a host team in seven years.
"It was a great way to start the tournament," said Fucale, a Montreal draft pick who won the Memorial Cup with Halifax two years ago.
For Kelowna, the loss was the first after seven straight playoff victories this spring, including a sweep of the Brandon Wheat Kings in the WHL final. They just didn’t look quite like themselves against the Remparts after a 10-day layoff, however, taking too many penalties and allowing too many Quebec chances.
"Our focus and execution weren’t where they need to be at this time of year," said head coach Dan Lambert.
The Rockets’ top defence tandem of Madison Bowey and Josh Morrissey had a rocky outing, and the top line of Leon Draisatl between Nick Merkley and Rourke Chartier barely lasted a period before being broken up. Quebec matched the defence pair of Ryan Graves, who played in the Memorial Cup with Val d’Or last year, and Raphael Maheux against Draisatl.
Draisatl, meanwhile, spent the first half of the third period in the penalty box serving a 10-minute misconduct along with fellow Edmonton Oiler prospect Marc-Olivier Roy of the Remparts, making a possible Kelowna comeback more difficult. Rockets owner Bruce Hamilton was steamed about that and the officiating in general afterwards, but you just don’t win a Memorial Cup with your best players making those kinds of decisions.
Morrissey was booted out late in the game for shooting the puck at a Quebec player after Erne potted an empty netter.
"You can’t take those penalties and that’s on me as well," said Draisatl. "The refs are a little different here and that’s how it is. I’m not going to comment anything else in that, but we have to be more disciplined."
Kelowna did draw to within a goal in the final minute on an unusual six-on-three power play, and Fucale needed to make a nice glove save on Bowey with two seconds left to protect the victory.
The other two teams, Rimouski and Oshawa, play Saturday afternoon. The Remparts then take on the Generals Sunday afternoon, while Kelowna has two days off before facing the Oceanic Monday night at Le Colisée.