ROCKET
Laval

2-4

MONSTERS
Cleveland

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Chaput – Evans – Belzile
Jevpalovs – Vejdemo – Grenier
Audette – McCarron – Alain
Shinkaruk – Froese – Waked[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Kulak – Fleury
Sproul – Lamarche
Sklenicka – Lernout[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:
Lindgren
McNiven

Scratches:

Adam Plant, Michael Pezzetta, Michal Moravcik

Injury List:

Gustav Olofsson (shoulder), Nikita Scherbak (lower body)

Game Report

It didn’t take long for the Cleveland Monsters to set the tone on Saturday night in the second game of their back-to-back series against the Laval Rocket at Quicken Loans Arena.

Less than three minutes after the opening faceoff, Eric Robinson muscled his way past Ryan Sproul while driving to the net and wristed the puck past Charlie Lindgren to put the Monsters on the board early.

But less than a minute later Alexandre Alain scored his third goal in as many games to tie the game at 1-1 after Michael McCarron dished the puck to Alain who lifted it over a sprawling Jean-Francois Berube.

The remainder of the first period was played pretty tightly, with Lindgren tracking the puck well and keeping the Monsters at bay. He had to stand on his head a bit in the second period, however, as Cleveland would outshoot Laval 14-4 in the middle frame.

In addition to looking like they were on their heels for most of the second period, the Rocket also lost Nikita Jevpalovs for the remainder of the game with a lower body injury when he and Doyle Somerby unintentionally collided in the Laval zone.

Alexandre Grenier then saw Lukas Vejdemo get the receiving end of a big hit in open ice after the play and immediately took down Justin Scott for the transgression. Both players received five minutes for fighting, Scott earned a two-minute interference call, and Grenier was handed a two-minute instigating penalty. Grenier would also later get a 10-minute instigating misconduct.

To make matters worse, the Monsters restored their lead when Mark Letestu fed a back pass out of the slot to Calvin Thurkauf who was waiting solo in the right circle and wristed the puck into the Laval net.

Just over a minute into the third period, though, Laval evened the score yet again when captain Byron Froese made an impossible-looking shot from a sharp angle below the goal line. The puck deflected off of Berube’s shoulder and into the Cleveland net to bring the score to 2-2.

Seconds later the Rocket found themselves killing off a hooking penalty by Alain, and the Monsters were able to convert on the power play. Alain did not seem to play many more shifts, if any, after that.

In additional roster news, Nikita Scherbak did not play in tonight’s game due to a lower-body injury and is listed as day-to-day.

Despite outshooting the Monsters 16-6 in the final period, the Rocket couldn’t come up with another goal, especially after Cleveland potted an empty-netter with 31 seconds left in the game. The Rocket now head back to Quebec where they won’t have much time to rest or practice before the Toronto Marlies come to town on Tuesday night.

▲     Brett Lernout, Charlie Lindgren, Lukas Vejdemo

▼     Michael Chaput, Ryan Sproul, Alexandre Grenier, Alex Belzile

1. Eric Robinson  CLE
2. Alex Broadhurst  CLE
3. Mark Letestu  CLE

Interviews conducted by Amy Johnson for AHL Report

LAVAL ROCKET | Interviews with Bouchard, Lindgren, Froese, Shinkaruk [VIDEO] https://t.co/g06Vs7YKRA pic.twitter.com/srmMNFzxYR

— AHL Report (@TheAHLReport) November 9, 2018

RECAP | Rocket – Monsters: Evans Scores Twice, Laval Wins Third Straight https://t.co/YXT95eaaWT pic.twitter.com/zlS2Z5eXay

— AHL Report (@TheAHLReport) November 10, 2018

Follow @theAHLReport on Twitter