Aiming now for the foot of Mont Blanc, to tackle Chamonix on Tuesday evening (8.05pm) and try to raise his head for the Angloys. For this alpine trip, the English staff has to compose without one of the team’s headliners: Anton Vasilyev. Ruled out on Friday night for misconduct towards referees, the Russian full-back received an automatic one-match ban, pending his pass against the disciplinary committee which could increase that penalty.
The Attack of Suffering
It is therefore with a very limited offensive that Pierrick Rézard and his players showed up this Sunday on the ice of the Alp’Arena in Gap. In a start to the match interrupted by penalties, it is the Raptors who take the monopoly of the game: three powerplay attempts, but without success for the locals who come across an intractable Mat Robson in his net. In turn, the angloys offered themselves few chances on the numerical advantage but too approximate to deceive the goalkeeper of the French national team, Julian Junca. At the end of a balanced first third, the two teams drew goalless.
At the beginning of the middle school, the Basques were coldly chosen by the Gapençais. Poor placement of the Czech defensive duo in the neutral zone, and Egor Gainetdinov found an ice-filled pass for Bostjan Golicic. The Slovenian found himself alone, and managed to close the left corner of Mat Robson (1-0, 21st). Thirty-two seconds after the opener, Gap put a new blow to the head of the Angloys who experienced a nightmarish start to the second half. In a two against one well negotiated by Dimitri Thillet, it was Loïc Coulaud who made the break for the Haut-Alpins (2-0, 22nd).
Opposite, the Angloys struggle to make themselves dangerous on Julian Junca’s goal. The lack of depth of the Basque offensive made itself felt then. After forty minutes the Anglo meter remained empty.
Too late
Encore repeated at the start of the last twenty minutes, this time in powerplay. Fabien Bourgeois moved Russia’s Egor Gainetdinov to the right of the circle, who cocked his one-timer and tricked Mat Robson just over the latter’s leg (3-0, 41st). The reaction of Pierrick Rézard’s men would come too late in this game.
At the end of the fifth powerplay, Anglet finds the foul three minutes from the end. A ball by Olivier Dame-Malka of the Azzurri forces the Raptors goalkeeper to leave a rebound, and Austin Glover (3-1, 56th) takes advantage of it to reduce the score. Hormadi then tried everything by pulling out his goalkeeper to evolve with six players on the ice, but nothing helped, the score remained unchanged at the final siren.
