Photo by Nick Michaels/VSBN
Cleveland, Ohio
Fresh off of five days rest from their first round series win, the Cleveland Monsters returned to the ice Thursday evening at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. The Syracuse Crunch came to town to start a best of a five game series in the north division finals (quarterfinals) of the Calder Cup playoffs.
The Monsters defense has been their backbone in these playoffs and they used that to their advantage Thursday night. With both offenses really struggling to get going, it would take two scoreless periods of hockey to really set the tone for the Monster offense to find ways to be more aggressive. Cleveland head coach Trent Vogelhuber in his 2nd season talked about the offensive struggles early on and what changed for them in the 3rd period, “ The first two periods we don’t even need to get into, they were pretty ugly, I think they were clearly the better team and I think it all stemmed from I think puck decisions, execution in the neutral zone then you’re defending more and you don’t have any energy to go on offense. The lack of offense came from spending your shift defending and chasing the puck because you turn it over and give it back to them. Give them a ton of credit, but I thought our woes were self inflicted, just not executing at the blue line. In the third period we dumbed it down and started skating and what do you know? You get some offensive opportunities and play a little bit better. “
With 15:14 left in the 3rd period Cleveland would finally find the back of the net. The Crunch were on a power play when Cleveland's Justin Pearson got a steal and scored an unassisted short handed goal to give the Monsters the lead and they never looked back. Justin Pearson talked about that play, “ Yea, it was just a simple angle on the puck and I kind of saw just a little soft back hand, reading the gap, I thought there was space coming down hill on the guy, I just let the puck do the work and I changed the angle on the goalie and it all worked out perfectly, I couldn’t be happier with the play.” This marks the second consecutive game where Justin Pearson has scored a goal in these Calder Cup playoffs. The first year Monster talked about his growth as a player, “Confidence is huge, it’s my first year here, improvement was the key here for me today so each game, each practice I’ve tried to learn something new and it’s been huge.”
You can’t talk about how well the Monsters play defensively without mentioning their goaltender Jet Greaves, who pitched his first Calder Cup playoff shutout Thursday but attributed that to his defenders in front of him, “I thought the guys were great tonight making sure when there was a rebound that they cleared it and making sure there weren’t any second chance opportunities, they did a good job with the box outs and that’s huge for me, it makes my job a lot easier when the guys do a great job like that.” Jet Greaves, who is clearly the fan favorite here judging by the roar of the crowd at player introductions, he once again had a stellar performance with 28 saves and several impressive glove stops as well.
Cleveland continues to roll in these playoffs, winning their fourth consecutive game after dropping game one of the Belleville series. When the offense struggles, this team can really lean on their tough, resilient defense lead by their NHL caliber goalie Jet Greaves, making them a tough out in these playoffs moving forward. Game two is this Saturday at 1pm inside Rocket Mortage Fieldhouse.
Nick Michaels
VSBN