Rockford IceHogs vs Cleveland Monsters
Tuesday, October 31st, 2017
Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
7:00 pm EST
Radio: 99x(99.1); 99x Online
Twitter: @goicehogs, @Monstershockey
Cleveland Monsters, 3-3-1-0, 7 points, .500 win%, 4th Central, 9th West
vs
Rockford IceHogs, 7-2-0-0, 14 points, .778 win%, 1st Central, 2nd West
As the Cleveland Monsters learned in their home opener, the Rockford IceHogs are a good team this year. In fact, they are the team to beat in the Central Division. The IceHogs sit atop the Central leaderboard with 14 points and a win percentage of 77.8%. Four points and 6.4% stands between them and the second team in the Central, Milwaukee Admirals.
The IceHogs shutout the Monsters, 4-0, in their last meeting. The Monsters just couldn’t capitalize on anything that night.
The loss of Tyler Motte to the parent club is going to hurt the Monsters a bit. This past weekend he scored four goals against the Ontario Reign. Motte was also a beacon of hope on the already struggling special teams.
Staying out of the box will be a necessity against the IceHogs as they are ranked 3rd in the league on the power play. We saw a breakdown in the Monsters penalty kill unit this past Saturday when they went 4 for 6 against the Reign. Part of the breakdown came from the amount of time the team spent shorthanded in a short amount of time.
Vinnie Hinostroza and Matthew Highmore lead the IceHogs in scoring. Highmore with five goals and Hinostroza with 11 points. However, the Monsters shouldn’t focus on these two alone. The team as a whole can score goals and create plays. The Monsters will need to play man-to-man against the IceHogs. Once you leave one of them alone, the IceHogs will find a way to score.
Season Series
10/7/2017 – Rockford (4) at Cleveland (0) – recap
10/31/2017
01/02/2018
01/06/2018
01/17/2018
01/19/2018
02/13/2018
02/17/2018