The Laval Rocket rolled into Utica for their first meeting of the year with the Comets at a bit of a crossroads. The team had lost three straight games despite not playing poorly in any of them. So for head coach Jean-François Houle, he opted to keep the Rocket lineup intact, with some minor alterations to the lines and defence pairs only.
Mattias Norlinder was bumped up to play with team captain Xavier Ouellet, while Corey Schueneman was dropped to the third pair with Louie Belpedio. Laurent Dauphin was also promoted to the top line opposite of Cole Caufield, while Rafaël Harvey-Pinard took his previous spot on the second line.