Monsters win streak ends with 5-2 loss to Checkers
BY ANDREW GUARINO
HOCKEY WRITER
(CHARLOTTE, NC) - The Monsters got themselves into a bad situation off the get-go, not even 90 seconds in they were killing off a 5/3 penalty for 1:50. The Checkers got a power play goal just 2:56 in. David Gust was below his blue line passed up to Kyle Wood who was above the right faceoff dot who passed to Jake Bean who was above the left one, Bean then fed Wood who blasted a slap shot past Matiss to give the Checkers a 1-0 lead. Janne Kuokkanen extended the Checkers lead to two at 5:54 of the first. Clark Bishop was against the boards and fed Janne Kuokkanen who took a slap which beat Matiss glove side. The Mosnters got a power play goal of their own at 11:14 of the first. Kevin Stenlund sent a pass up to Adam Clendening who was patient did a little drag move beating Alex Nedeljkovic glove side. That would do the scoring in the first. As the first period was coming to an end, Marko Dano made a couple big hits which upset the Checkers. There was a good scrum near the benches between just about everyone on the ice, Bryan Gibbons of the Checkers was doing everything he could to get at Dano. Thanks to that he was the only one to get a penalty out of it. He got 24 penalty minutes which included a game misconduct , 10 minute game misconduct, 10 minute misconduct abuse of officials, 2 for cross checking and 2 for unsportsmanlike conduct disputing decision.
The second period saw the Monsters tie things up 3:59 in. There was a scramble in front of the net which saw Jakob Lilja score assist going to Ryan Maclnnis, this was also a power play goal. The Checkers regained the lead for good at 10:08 of the second. Dillon Simpson fumbled a puck in the Checkers zone, Julien Gauthier picked it up and went on a break away and slid it past Matiss. The 4th Checkers goal came at 16:16 Jake bean shot a puck from the blue line which found its way through traffic into the back of the net assist going to Roland Mckeown and Steven Lorentz.
The Checkers got their final goal of the game at 16:20. Some pretty passing by the Checkers led to a Steven Lorentz goal. Lorentz game into the zone left a drop pass for Kerby Rychel who passed to the middle where Roland Mckeown got the puck and fed Lorentz who was now on the stick of Matiss and was easily able to get it by him to make it 5-2. Which would be the final score.
Looking back at the keys to the game. The first key was to score early in the period and the Monsters did not do that tonight. Second key was to continue to dominate the kill the Monsters gave up one powerplay goal and the third key was to extend the streak against the Checkers to 4 straight which the Monsters could not do. Player of the game goes to Matiss who really kept us in the game.
The Checkers started Alex Nedeljkovic in the net and stopped 20/22 shots faced. The Monsters countered with Matiss Kivlenieks In net who stopped 34/39 shots faced. The first star went to Jake Bean with a goal and an assist, second star Julien Gauthier with a goal and third star Steven Lorentz with a goal and an assist.
Next up for Cleveland is the Rochester Americans Saturday night from the Rocket Mortgage Field-house. Key 1 to victory will be take more shots at the Monsters did not have one peorid with more than 9 shots on goal, the second key will be to continue to score on the power play and the final key will be to get back to business on the penalty kill, killing penalties and scoring shorties. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
POSTED 11/27/2019 23:54
Lake County Sentinel
