Monsters Defeated in 6-3 Loss to Crunch
Feb 21, 2020The AHL’s Cleveland Monsters fell to the Syracuse Crunch 6-3 on Friday evening at Upstate Medical University Arena. With the loss, the Monsters are now 23-26-3-2 and are currently in eighth place in the AHL’s North Division standings with 51 points.
The Crunch scored the only goal of the opening period with a tally from Mathieu Joseph at 14:07 sending the Monsters to the first intermission trailing 1-0. Cleveland responded at the start of the middle frame with Markus Hannikainen’s marker at 3:02 off feeds from Trey Fix-Wolansky and Doyle Somerby to knot the game 1-1. Syracuse broke the tie following a power-play goal from Alex Barre-Boulet at 6:10 and two markers from Peter Abbandonato at 8:32 and 14:33 bringing the score to 4-1 after forty minutes. Cleveland’s Branden Troock started a comeback with a tally at 4:11 of the third period off helpers from Ryan MacInnis and Hannikainen, but Syracuse’s Boris Katchouk responded with a power-play goal at 6:18. Hannikainen scored his second goal of the night at 10:31 with assists from MacInnis and Dillon Simpson, but Syracuse secured the 6-3 victory with an empty-net tally from Barre-Boulet at 19:12.
Cleveland’s Veini Vehvilainen made 14 saves in defeat while Syracuse’s Scott Wedgewood stopped 21 shots in victory.
The Monsters conclude their road trip against the Rochester Americans on Saturday evening with a 7:05 p.m. puck drop at Blue Cross Arena. 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.
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Scoring:
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | OT | SO | Final | |
| CLE | 0 | 1 | 2 | - | - | 3 |
| SYR | 1 | 3 | 2 | - | - | 6 |
Shots/Special Teams:
| Shots | PP | PK | PIM | |
| CLE | 24 | 0/5 | 3/5 | 49 min / 11 inf |
| SYR | 20 | 2/5 | 5/5 | 19 min / 8 inf |
Goaltenders:
| Goaltender | Outcome | Saves | GA | Record | |
| CLE | Vehvilainen | L | 14 | 5 | 10-15-3 |
| SYR | Wedgewood | W | 21 | 3 | 12-7-2 |
Cleveland Record: 23-26-3-2, 8th North Division
Syracuse Record: 25-22-3-5, 6th North Division
GAME SHEET – GAME PHOTOS – GAME HIGHLIGHTS*
*Game highlights will appear as soon as possible following video processing.