The Cleveland Monsters were shutout by their division rival, the Grand Rapids Griffins, last night.
Anton Forsberg stopped 26 of the 31 shots he faced. Six of which came from the heavy-handed shot of Martin Frk.
Cal Heeter stopped all 35 shots the Monsters threw his way. Joe Pendenza and Ryan Stanton were the only two players who didn’t have a shot on goal.
In a pregame interview, Coach John Madden explained one of the keys to succeed against the Griffins was to score goals and stay off the penalty kill. Unfortunately, the exact opposite occurred.
The Monsters racked up 27 minutes worth of penalties.
The good news; the Monsters went six for eight on the penalty kill. Considering the circumstances the score could have been a lot higher for the Griffins. For the most part, the Monsters play a more crisp and clean game when they are on the penalty kill. However, during last night’s game Forsberg had to put in a lot of work to block the barrage of shots during the penalty kill.
The bad news; the Monsters will probably lose Brett Gallant for at least a game due to his slashing penalty. During the second period, Gallant ran Hicketts at center ice. Hicketts didn’t like being run so he slashed Gallant. Then Gallant aggressively slashed Hicketts. Aggressive is a bit of an understatement but you get the point.
Gallant would receive a 5 minute major and a 10-minute game misconduct.
Five goals were scored during the game. None of which were by current Monsters.
Goals were scored by Martin Frk, Eric Tangradi, Evgeny Svechnikov, Matthew Ford, and Dylan Sadowy.
The Monsters take on the Milwaukee Admirals in Milwaukee on Tuesday, January 24th at 8pm est.