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DRUMMONDVILLE, Que. - Anthony Beauregard scored twice, including the eventual winner at 7:54 of the third period as the Val-dOr Foreurs edged the Drummondville Voltigeurs 3-2 on Sunday to advance to the semifinal of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playoffs. Pierre-Maxime Poudrier rounded out the offence for the Foreurs with a power-play goal at 5:12 of the second period, and Nicolas Aube-Kubel contributed with two assists as Val-dOr took the series 4-2. Jerome Verrier and Ryan Culkin replied for the Voltigeurs, who were outshot 32-26. Foreurs goaltender Antoine Bibeau made 24 saves, while Drummondvilles Louis-Philip Guindon stopped 29 shots in the loss. Val-dOr will next play the Halifax Mooseheads, who won their series over Gatineau in five games. Cheap Nike Shoes Womens ." Bach is in Rome for the European Olympic Committees general assembly and meetings with Pope Francis. He also visited with Italian Premier Enrico Letta. 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Halak, 28, split his eighth NHL seasons between the St. Louis Blues, Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals, compiling a 29-13-7 record in 52 games. Nike Shoes Wholesale Free Shipping .C. -- Kurt Busch put his chances at "70 per cent" at running the Indianapolis 500 this year because of recent developments that have pushed a potential program along.VANCOUVER, BC -- You can’t spell production without the O or the D, but the Vancouver Canucks are bending the rules of the English language these days. They’re getting plenty of production and they’re finding ways to do it without any O from any D. The Canucks are the sixth in the National Hockey League in both actual goals scored (65) and goals per game (2.96), so offence is not an issue. The Canucks have been an up-tempo hockey club playing an entertaining style based on spread scoring and a four-line attack. The surprise in all of this is that the Canucks are achieving such offensive success with one of the lowest-scoring defences in the NHL. As a group, Canucks blueliners have contributed just 32 points in 22 games. Compare that to the Calgary Flames, who’ve amassed 68 points from their defensive corps already this season. In fact, the Flames have four blueliners with more points than Alex Edler, the Canucks highest-scoring blueliner, who’s sitting with a modest eight points on the season. As of Thursday morning, 46 defencemen around the league have been more productive than Edler and 70 D-men in the NHL rank higher than the next highest-scoring defencemen on the hockey club. The New York Rangers and Buffalo Sabres are the only teams in the league with a top-scoring defenceman with fewer points than Edler. The lack of offence from the blue line clearly isn’t hurting the Canucks, who are 11-3-1 in their past 15 games, but even head coach Willie Desjardins is startled by the fact there hasn’t been more contributions from the back end. “To me, I’m a little bit surprised they don’t have more points -- it’s not that they don’t join the rush, it’s just that they don’t get rewarded,” the coach explained. ”We want our defence to be involved and we want to make things happen. You look at Yannick Weber’s rush. We want that. You see quite a bit on the tape. You’ll see Kevin Bieksa going through the middle and you’ll see Alex Edler up.” So, the coach is seeing many of the things he wants to see from his defencemen - he’s just not seeing their name on the scoresheet very often.dddddddddddd But, perhaps, things are changing. In their past four games, the Canucks have seven points from defencemen. Still, as a group, this defence will have to pick up the pace just to match last year’s – and remember that the 2013-14 Canucks were one of the lowest-scoring teams in franchise history. A year ago, led by Jason Garrison’s 33 points, the Canucks blueline contributed 147 points or an average of 1.79 points per game. Right now, this year’s defence is sputtering at 1.45 points per game with just seven goals and 25 assists. If Edler, Bieksa, Chris Tanev and Dan Hamhuis are considered the top four defenders on the hockey club, that group has accounted for just one even strength goal so far this season (Bieksa, against Ottawa on November 11). All three of Edler’s goals have come on the power play. Neither Tanev nor Hamhuis, who’s now injured, has found the back of the net yet this season. Luca Sbisa is second among Canuck defencemen with two goals, but hasn’t scored since November 1 in Edmonton. But it’s not all about goal-scoring. It’s about the transition game. It’s about holding pucks in at the blue line. It’s about finding ways to get involved in the offence and, in the eyes of the coach, it’s about getting shots on goal, which, even if they don’t go in, may still produce rebounds and create scoring chances for others. “One thing we need from our back end, is we have to get more pucks through,” Desjardins said. “I don’t think [the issue is] the joining the rush. We’ve got good D that can skate and we have to use that. That has to be a part of our attack. We just have to get more pucks through.” No one in the Canucks organization is worried about the lack of offence from the blue line, but certainly the coaches are aware that it’s one area the hockey club can improve. And if that defence ever hits its stride offensively and points start to flow, there’s no telling just how dangerous the Vancouver Canucks can be. ' ' '