QMJHL: ADT Challenge - Copper Town Night

Prospect Report: (posted 11.23.06)

by Guy Portelance

Rouyn-Noranda hosted the first instalment of the ADT Challenge yesterday evening. This northern mining town has produced a lot of hockey players over the years. Dave Keon, Dale Tallon, Pierre and Sylvain Turgeon, Jacques Laperrière, Pit Martin and Éric Desjardins just to name a few, all hail from copper city.

QMJHL leading scorer Mathieu Perreault scored twice and also had an assist as the Q team won 6-2 over the Russian Selects. Perreault, a 6th round choice of the Washington Capitals in 2006, was named player of the game for the Q side. Both his linemates Angelo Esposito and Kevin Lemieux ended up assisting on his goals.

"I have offensive abilities but I have to hand it to Angelo, he made it easy for me" said Perreault.

Marc-André Gragnani, Françis Paré, Ryan Hillier and Kevin Lemieux completed the scoring for the Q team. Other notables included hometown favourites Yannick Riendeau who had two assists on the night and possible WJC netminder Jean-Philippe Levasseur who looked pretty good between the pipes. Rouyn native Marc-André Cliche, a New York Rangers prospect, had a strong showing even if his name didn't appear on the score sheet.

The only bright side for the Russian Selects was the performance of their goalie, Ilya Proskuryakov. The Russian player of the game only gave up one goal on 17 shots in the first period. "He was great for them." noted team QMJHL head coach Clément Jodoin "...the score could have been much higher." he added.

Dallas Star prospect Ivan Vishnevsky offered some insight about the Russian performance. "We started off fine but as the game progressed and as they scored more goals I think we stopped playing."

Clément Jodoin said "the guys that don't play in North America have trouble adapting to a more tight checking type game since Russians play a more open game." But he also said he expected a "much tougher game" today.