Rouen tops French Ligue Magnus regular season

28 Feb 2011 | Chris Laparra

As expected, defending champion Rouen finished first at the end of the 26 games Ligue Magnus regular season, 4 pts ahead last season runner-up Angers.

Rouen and Angers are expected to compete again for the French title this season, one month after playing the French Cup final which Rouen won after the shootout. Close rivals, Gap (3rd) and Briançon (4th) have also secured their direct spot for the quarter finals. A good surprise for Gap, a team promoted in Ligue Magnus only last season. This is a good result for Briançon too as the team was about to be relegated to Division 3 last summer after facing financial troubles.

The first round of the play-offs (best-of-three) will start Tuesday with the following match-ups : Amiens vs. Dijon (winner plays Briançon in quarter finals), Epinal vs. Strasbourg (winner plays Gap in quarter finals), Grenoble vs. Villard-de-Lans (winner plays Angers in quarter finals) and Chamonix vs. Morzine-Avoriaz (winner plays Rouen in quarter finals). Caen and Mont-Blanc will play against eachother a best-of-five play-down series for staying in Ligue Magnus, the loser being relegated to Division 1. This is the third consecuve time Mont-Blanc will play this play-down series while Caen was promoted only this season and needs to avoid going back straight to Division 1.

Rouen Canadian sniper Carl Mallette ended up Ligue Magnus top scorer this season with 57 pts (25 goals + 32 assists) in 26 games. He is followed in the scoring list by two teammates : French-Canadian forward Julien Desrosiers (52 pts) and Canadian center François-Pierre Guenette (49 pts).