CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland Monsters dropped game one of the North Division semifinals of the AHL Calder Cup playoffs, 3-2, to the Laval Rocket inside Rocket Arena on Wednesday night. The best-of-five series picks back up on Friday night for game two.
Laval was the best team in the AHL during the regular season, finishing with an AHL-best 101 points. That was six points better than second-best Hershey, and 20 points better than the Monsters. But on Wednesday, the Monsters went toe-to-toe with a fresh Rocket squad coming off an 11-day break between games and had chances to take the win.
After a scoreless first period, Joseph LaBate got things going for the Monsters with a power-play goal with just under eight minutes left in the second period. Offensive chances for the Monsters were limited for the rest of the period, opening the door for the Rocket to respond. Scoring two goals in the final 3:51 of the second, the Rocket took a 2-1 lead into a crucial third period.
Monsters’ goaltender Jet Greaves, who finished the year with a sensational run for the Columbus Blue Jackets, made a crucial error turning over the puck on a short pass in the Monsters’ zone that the Rocket’s Brandon Gignac intercepted, then found Owen Beck for a one-timer goal. “We gotta help him out, talk to him, but if we don’t have anything (then we) can’t try to force plays and we gotta help our goaltender out with talk,” Monsters head coach Trent Vogelhuber said. “Just gotta advance the zone. It’s not fun, but sometimes we’ve just gotta punt it. (Greaves) is outstanding at handling the puck. Obviously, he wanted to have that one back.”
The goal put the Monsters in a 3-1 hole with just under 15 minutes to play in the third. The Monsters were able to get off a few good looks, but were denied by Jacob Fowler for most of the period. Throwing the kitchen sink at the Rocket’s tough defense, the Monsters got some hope not only for the game but for the rest of the series when defenseman Denton Mateychuk netted his third goal of the playoffs with just over two minutes remaining to cut the lead to one.
Despite a 6-5 push in the final seconds of the game with a few looks, the Rocket came away with a game one victory built on defense. “Real good defensive team, they are, but I thought the second period there where the game stalled for us a little bit,” Vogelhuber said. “When we broke the puck out clean, dug in and got it past the blue line, we had some success. But that stretch there in the second period (we) got a little east-west-y and then they turned the three-quarter ice game on us, and we take a penalty, and they get that second goal.”
The loss is Greaves’ first since way back on March 17 against the New Jersey Devils, and the Monsters’ first loss this postseason. The Rocket outshot the Monsters 32-25. “I think we’ve got to stay in support so we can get the puck out of our zone so we’re not defending,” Vogelhuber said. “We got underwater there for minutes where (we) got stalled and then were chasing the game and we had five defensemen for the entire game and they’re underwater and trying to catch up there, so we’ve got to give them a little bit of help.”
“They’re hard to make plays (on) through the middle of the ice, they defend really well. They reload really well. So, we’re gonna have to work for it, but lots of good. Lots of things we can build on and lots of things we can learn from as well.” Losing the penalty battle turned out to be costly for the Monsters as well. In Vogelhuber’s eyes, his team needs to play their game and not play into their opponent’s. “I thought we’ve got a little bit of room to improve there, take a slashing penalty in the back of somebody’s legs and two stick penalties that aren’t retaliatory, but unneeded,” Vogelhuber said. “That’s part of their game. Part of their DNA. There’s guys on that team that are going to try to get under your skin, and you have to take a punch this time of year, you gotta let it go. That’s the way they wanna play, so we’ve gotta keep our heads.”
