Monsters Fall Short in 5-1 Loss to Checkers
Dec 28, 2019The AHL’s Cleveland Monsters fell to the Charlotte Checkers 5-1 on Saturday night at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in front of 12,117 fans. With the loss, the Monsters are now 14-14-1-2 and are currently in seventh place in the AHL’s North Division standings with 31 points.
Charlotte’s Spencer Smallman scored the first goal of the game at 2:07 in the opening period, but Sam Vigneault notched a power-play tally for Cleveland at 16:24 with assists from Adam Clendening and Trey Fix-Wolansky to tie the game 1-1 after 20 minutes.
The Checkers took the 2-1 lead in the middle frame following Julien Gauthier’s goal on the man advantage at 6:53. Charlotte added three goals in the third period to solidfy the 5-1 win with markers from Fredrik Claesson at 5:45, Max McCormick at 16:27 and Gustav Forsling 10 seconds later.
Matiss Kivlenieks made 37 saves in the loss while Charlotte’s Alex Nedeljkovic stopped 18 pucks for the win.
The Monsters host the Charlotte Checkers again on Monday afternoon with a special 12:00 p.m. puck drop at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Follow the games with full coverage on ALT 99.1, AHLTV and the Monsters Hockey Network.
Stay up to date on all Monsters news with the Monsters Mobile App presented by University Hospitals available to download at the Apple Store or Google Play Store. Be sure to follow the Monsters on Twitter @monstershockey, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/monstershockey, and on Instagram @monstershockey.
Scoring:
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | OT | SO | Final | |
| CLE | 1 | 0 | 0 | - | - | 1 |
| CHA | 1 | 1 | 3 | - | - | 5 |
Shots/Special Teams:
| Shots | PP | PK | PIM | |
| CLE | 19 | 1/3 | 4/5 | 36 min / 10 inf |
| CHA | 42 | 1/4 | 3/4 | 24 min / 8 inf |
Goaltenders:
| Goaltender | Outcome | Saves | GA | Record | |
| CLE | Kivlenieks | L | 37 | 4 | 7-6-2 |
| CHA | Nedeljkovic | W | 18 | 1 | 7-8-1 |
Cleveland Record: 14-14-1-2, 7th North Division
Checkers Record: 15-13-3-0, 6th Atlantic Division
GAME SHEET – GAME PHOTOS – GAME HIGHLIGHTS*
*Game highlights will appear as soon as possible following video processing.