Third Time, No Charm: Lake Erie Monsters Come Up Short Again

The Manitoba Moose came to Lake Erie banged up, a good omen for an equally nicked Monsters team. 

While the Monsters outhustled Manitoba for forty minutes, the last twenty turned out to be the difference in a 3-1 Moose win.

This was the third game in a row the Monsters outplayed their opponents, and they only have one victory to show for it. 

Lake Erie, coming off an overtime victory over The Syracuse Griffins, and for the first time this year not listed as the last-place team in the Western Conference of the North Division, lost another close one they should have had.  This is one snake bitten team! After the game Coach Sacco it was “inexcusable to lose” and he was right.

The first period was all Monsters.  A minute and a half in the Lake Erie went on the power play after a penalty to Juraj Simek, two minutes for high sticking.  The puck spent a lot of time in the Monster end of the ice, but did not reach the back of the net during a spirited power play.  Fresh off their short handed fram , the Moose broke out of the box and stormed down the ice.  A nice play by Mike Vernace broke up a quality scoring chance by the Moose.  Minutes later, the Alexandre Bolduc for the Moose shot one from the blue line that was gloved by Mike Wall.  Wall lived up to his name, keeping the Moose off the scoreboard.  So far through the first period the shots on goal favored the Lake Erie Monsters, as did control of the puck.

Mitch Love launched into his first fight of the game.  He leads the Monsters in penalty minutes, mostly from fighting. Denisov picked up two minutes for tripping, Love copped five minutes for fighting, and Pierre-Cedric Labrie picked up the opposing five minute penalty.  Just 27 seconds into the Power play, Danny Grouix picked up two minutes for running into Monster goalie Mike Wall, putting both teams on a four on four.  Historically, the Monsters typically get the best of the four-on-four skating.  This time though it was mainly Moose.  The four-on-four was killed off without much shot action, and the Monsters ten second power play at the end of the four-on-four yielded nothing.

Mike Keane of the Moose was the first of the day to ring the post, a close call for the Monsters with 4:50 left in the first.  The Monsters came right back on a break out by Brent Kelly, carrying the puck all the way in before a nice block by Schneider.  The Moose took control with two minutes left in the period, putting on a bit of pressure.  A bad turnover in the Monster zone resulted in an easy scoring chance that Monster Goalie Mike Wall turned away, holding the score at 0-0.  Lake Erie has given up a lot of late period goals this year so it was nice to see the Monsters come out of the period tied 0-0.  The story of the first was both goalies performing in stellar fashion, shutting down the offenses.

Second period opened with the Monsters taking a penalty to Steve Margeson, two minutes for holding.  Margeson has been performing well of late, shaking off bad penalties that have hurt the Monsters in the past.  This particular penalty was timely and effectively kept the Moose off net, so Kudos had to go to Margeson for his improvement.

The Monsters took a 1-0 lead by breaking through the stone wall of goalie Cory Schneider with 9:33 to go in the second period by Chris Stewart.   Assists were logged  by T.J. Hensick and Eric Healey.  The way the game was going, a 1-0 lead might end up winning the game.   A penalty to Burki at 7:25 left in the second for slashing put Manitoba back on the power play.  Manitoba had serious control issues through the first minute of the penalty kill as they could not get it into the Monster end of the ice.  An off sides at the end of the penalty kill was nice for the Monsters, and they held their lead of 1-0.  Heshka and Hussey stayed tied up in the corner for an extraordinary amount of time, with Hussey trying to work it out.  The ref repeatedly yelled for them to get it out of the corner.  Eventually, Heshka got the boot for holding, but you couldn’t say he wasn’t warned.  The second period closed with the Moose taking the lead in the shots on goal column, 26-21, but primarily most of those shots were generated with the Moose on the power play.   

Mike Keane, a forty-year old, who looked more like twenty,  scored less than one minute into the third, tying the score 1-1.  The assist  by Mulduc.  Mulduc has been killer in every game against the Monster this year.  Boychuk got smacked in the  right leg at 16:24 into the third.  Play was stopped and he was helped off the ice.  This was a big loss for the Monsters as Boychuk has been used as a defenseman and forward the last few games, and had been a spark on both sides of the ice, as a forechecker and a backchecker.   It was reported the side of his kneecap hit on the ice.  The good news for the Monsters was he would return.  The Moose offense roared to life in this third period.  Three shots on goal in a matter of seconds were all stopped by Mike Wall - he eventually covered puck.  The momentum definitely had shifted toward the Moose end of the ice.  Another minute slanted toward the Moose end of the ice in the Monster zone brought about an injury to Mike Wall.  He took a hip to the head and required a minute to recover.  The net was dislodged in all the mayhem.  The Moose took the lead with roughly twelve minutes remaining on a goal from Grabner.  This could have been a shakeup goal scored on Wall, although after the game he said the injury had nothing to do with the Moose scoring.  The Monsters already sported two goalies on the injured list and were hurting for a  replacement.  They brought up a guy named Penner that hadn’t played yet since his call up a number of games ago, but Wall remained in the net.

T.J. Hensick took another penalty, this time with 9:40 remaining in the third.  He was really the catalyst for the Monsters throughout the third period, so having him sit in the box for two minutes was definitely two minutes too long.  Cory Schneider of the Moose shut down the Monsters for the rest of the third, and an empty netter at the end of the game rounded out the scoring at 3-1.  While going to Monsters games is great fun and a fantastic time, it is certainly frustrating to watch them come out on the short end yet again on a game they should have won.