Starters:
Monsters – Bjorkstrand, Tynan, Broadhurst
Sifers, Heatherington
Forsberg
Stars – Dowling, Dickinson, Elie
Bacakman, Nemeth
Lagace
Scratches:
Monsters – Stanton, Thiessen, Zaar, Bergeron
Stars – Bodnarchuk, McMurtry, Van Brabant, Ebert, Gurianov
The Monsters evened their weekend series against the Stars with a 2-1 shoot out win.
In the first two plays of the game, Sifers fired a shot from the blue line that Lagace knocked away. Moments later, Dowling steals the puck but doesn’t get very far before Bjorkstrand steals it back.
The first penalty of the game came around 90 seconds into the first due to a Moutrey slashing minor. The Monsters would win the faceoff draw and clear the puck. The Stars would quickly hunt down the puck and bring it back into the Monsters zone. Luckily, they were offsides and couldn’t get within striking distance of Forsberg. With nine seconds left in the Monsters penalty kill, Maletta fanned on a wrister. Maletta’s fanned wrister was one of the Monsters only shots at scoring during their penalty kill.
A little over four minutes into the first, Caleb Herbert backhanded the puck into the net behind Forsberg giving the Stars the 1-0 lead. In the minute that followed, Herbert attempted to score his second goal of the night three separate times. Forsberg was there to deny Herbert all three times.
The Stars headed to their second power play of the game when Matej Stransky was hooked from behind by TJ Tynan with 12:33 to go in the first. The refs called Tynan for hooking (2 minutes) and unsportsmanlike conduct (2 minutes). The Stars maintained a lot of control during the Monsters’ penalty kill.
With four seconds left in the penalty, Craig was tripped by Fyten and collided with the board. There would be four seconds of 4-on-4 play before the Monsters headed to the power play.
There would be many missed chances from both teams for the rest of the period.
The first period would end with the Monsters trailing the Stars, 0-1. As well as, a scuffle between DeFazio and Scott.
The second period would start with two minutes of 4-on-4 hockey and a wardrobe malfunction for Lagace.
Once the teams were back to even strength, Morin had a wrap around attempt but Forsberg pounced on the puck before it could go in.
A minute later, Maletta had an off balanced shot and momentum got the best of him as he barreled into Lagace. No penalty was called.
Five minutes later, Moutrey muscled his way to the net and scored the equalizer.
Minutes later, Elie and Ully traded passes back and forth before one of them gets the guts to shoot the puck. Fortunately for the Monsters, Forsberg is quick to stop the puck from getting past the goal line.
With 8:05 left in the second, Lagace finally leaves the ice to fix his wardrobe malfunction giving the two teams a short break.
Two minutes later, Nemeth fired off a shot thinking Forsberg was off guard. Moments after that Herbert broke away going one on one with Forsberg during a Monsters line change. Herbert would hit the right post instead of the back of the net.
Like the first period, the last few minutes of the second period was full of missed chances and highlight reel saves by Lagace and Forsberg.
The third period played out much like the first two periods of the game. However, after a plethora of attempts and astounding saves by both goalies this game headed to overtime.
Overtime
Bjorkstrand fired off the first goal attempt of overtime in the first 30 seconds.
Both the Monsters and the Stars desperately fought to end the game on top.
A last second kick save by Forsberg sent the Monsters and the Stars to a shootout.
Shoot Out
Here’s how the shoot out went down.
Ranford – Deked to the right, fired, and glove saved by Forsberg – Denied
Milano – Skated through the right circle and fired right into Lagace – Denied
Defazio – Skated wide right crossing the blue line, fires off a shot, but is stopped by Forsberg – Denied
Tynan – Moved down the middle of the ice slowing down as he neared Lagace. Tynan fired through Lagace’s legs but the puck bounced off of his skate and out of the crease. – Denied
Herbert – Scored
Maletta – Skated straight down the middle, deked left, and popped the puck over Lagace’s shoulder – Scored
Morin – Ding! Off the post! – Denied
Broadhurst – Went to the left side, fired, and gets the puck past Lagace. – Scored
Thanks to shoot out goals by Maletta and Broadhurst, the Monsters topped the Starsfor the first time this season.