Monsters-Bulldogs: Lake Erie Beats Hamilton in a Thriller

12,291 fans loaded themselves into Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland Ohio on Friday night hoping to see some fantastic hockey.  Their hopes turned to reality in a back and forth high scoring goal-fest that ended in a 5-4 win after a shootout.  The story of the night was Jason Bascashua.  He returned to goal after a long layoff from injury, stopping 45 of 49 shots in the victory and turning in a 4 stops in 5 shoot out attempts.

The Monsters went down early going in the hole 2-0 on a pair of goals by Brett Engelhardt, one in the first period.  The second period saw a flurry of scoring activity. 

Engelhardt’s second goal was less than a minute in, and T.J. Hensick made it 2-1 roughly two minutes later.  Engelhardt racked up the hatrick shortly thereafter, returning the Bulldog lead to 2 and stretching the score to 3-1. 

With the Monsters out of the playoffs, they could have mailed in the game from here, but that is not true Monster fashion.  They cut the score to 3-2 when T.J. Hensick began a hatrick bid of his own, scoring his second goal of the evening.  Between Hensick and Engelhardt, they’d accounted for all five of the goals on the board.  It looked like the Monsters would head into the locker room down 3-2, but a tremendous rush with nineteen seconds left in the period left Tom Frische alone behind the Bulldog goal with about five seconds to go.  He circled, shot the puck into the buttock of a Hamilton defender and the puck careened in with .02 seconds left on the clock, tying the game at 3.

The Monsters opened up their first lead of the evening with Brad Richardson going five hole with five minutes left.  A cheesy hooking call at the blue line gave Hamilton a 5-on-4 advantage.  They pulled the goalie as well, giving them a 6-on-4.  Smith took a short handed shot at the empty net that would have iced the game, but missed, leaving Hamilton with an opportunity to tie.  They did so with just a minute left, Lahti slapping home the 4-4 tie on a beautiful offensive passing series for Hamilton. 

The overtime frame was exciting, but netting no scores, taking the game into a shootout. 

Bascashihua, who shined all evening, closed out his performance by stonewalling Hamilton in the shootout, giving Lake Erie the victory.

These two teams play again, this time in Hamilton.  The Monsters have two home games left prior to the end of the season.