The Lake Erie Monsters can move within one win of the Calder Cup with a Game 3 victory Monday night against the Hershey Bears.
The Monsters lead the best-of-seven series 2-0 and host the next three games at Quicken Loans Arena. Sportsnet ONE will televise the game and the remainder of the series.
Monday’s game will be the first Calder Cup final game in Cleveland since May 13, 1966. A Cleveland team has not won a Calder Cup championship since 1964.
Lake Erie continued its springtime roll this past Friday with a 5-3 win at Hershey that gave the Monsters their seventh consecutive win and 22nd victory in their past 26 games. Lake Erie is 13-2 in the post-season and are trying to become the first-ever Columbus Blue Jackets affiliate to win the Calder Cup.
The Monsters have relied on balanced scoring while using top NHL prospects, including Anton Forsberg’s continued strong goaltending in their Game 2 victory. Rookie Oliver Bjorkstrand, a 2013 third-round pick, scored twice. Daniel Zaar, the team’s regular-season leading goal-scorer, served up his second consecutive two-point night with a goal and an assist.
Only three teams in AHL history have rallied from a 3-0 series hole.
Balanced scoring
Hershey has struggled to handle Lake Erie’s size and speed so far. Only two Monster forwards are below six feet while Hershey has nine forwards under the six-foot threshold.
A look at the eight Lake Erie skaters that have reached double-digits in playoff scoring reveals a mix of experience, youth, top prospects and projects, that have helped propel this playoff run.
The Monsters offence finished 21st in scoring during the regular season and has flourished in the playoffs. Lake Erie scored 13 goals in four games against the defending Calder Cup champion Ontario Reign in the Western Conference final, the AHL’s top defensive team in the regular season. The Monsters have scored four or more goals in 10 of the past 15 games.
Zaar, 22, has emerged as a strong prospect for future NHL duty in his first season in North America. A 2012 sixth-round pick, Zaar had one full season in the Swedish Hockey League before heading to Cleveland. His strong regular-season play has continued in the post-season, where he has five goals and six assists in 15 games.
Zaar is part of a line with Alex Broadhurst and two-way centre Michael Chaput. Broadhurst managed 36 points in 60 games this season, but he has put up 11 points in 15 playoff games.
Lukas Sedlak, who has been limited to a checking role for much of this season, continued his remarkable run in Game 2 with a league-leading ninth playoff goal. That goal restored a two-goal lead shortly after the Bears had closed to within a goal. Sedlak, who is in a tie for third place in playoff scoring with 14 points, teams with Bjorkstrand and Markus Hannikainen to provide the Monsters with a speedy trio capable of creating commotion for Bears defenders.
Captain Ryan Craig dipped to nine goals in the regular season after three consecutive campaigns with 17 or more goals. But the 34-year-old places third in team playoff scoring with nearly a point-per-game average. Craig makes up a checking line with reliable centre Trent Vogelhuber and 20-year-old Sonny Milano, the 16th-overall pick in the 2014 NHL Draft.
Forsberg had 27 saves in Game 2, giving him a 7-0 playoff record to go with a 1.49 goals-against average and a .948 save percentage.
Building experience
Part of the AHL playoff journey is building experience for future NHLers. While the Monsters had first- and third-round sweeps, they faced a scare from the rival Grand Rapids Griffins in the second round. Lake Erie had built a 3-0 series lead only to see the series go to a Game 6 overtime. It took an extra-time goal from 18-year-old Zach Werenski for the Monsters to escape the series, but they have carried their lessons with them since.
“I think we have excellent character,” Monsters head coach Jared Bednar told the team website after Game 2, pointing to Craig, plus veteran blueliners Justin Falk and Jaime Sifers. “Those guys are exceptional.”
“I think we’ve learned a lot in the playoff series that we’ve gone through, especially the Grand Rapids one. I think we’ve learned from that as a group.”
One of those areas of learning has been the power play.
After being held without a man-advantage opportunity in Game 1, the Lake Erie power play awakened in Game 2. They converted twice on three chances, including Werenski’s opening goal on a wide-open opportunity that put the Bears down a goal 3:05 into the game. Hershey’s penalty kill had killed off 33 of the past 35 power-play chances it had faced on home ice prior to the matchup.
“That has been a work in progress all year for us,” Bednar said of the Monsters, who endured mid-season struggles on the power play. “We put a lot of time into it, we changed some things around, we added Werenski to our blue line on the one unit, showing teams a little bit of a different look on two different units.”
“I think our decision-making on the shots that we’re taking is one thing. I think we were a little cute mid-season. Getting guys to the net, not just one player standing in front of the goalie but a secondary wave of guys to the net, that has helped us a lot in the playoffs.”
“As the intensity of the playoffs has built up, I think our guys have done a good job managing the puck a little bit better, getting harder on pucks and then just making plays.”