Columbus Blue Jackets: Monsters Penalties Ruin Undefeated Run
By William Espy
The Columbus Blue Jackets’ AHL affiliate Cleveland Monsters played the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Thursday.
Memories of historic Columbus Blue Jackets teams came to mind last night when the Cleveland Monsters gave up eleven power plays to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins.
Early in the first period, debuting Mark Letestu would take an interference penalty on a big hit and a minute later Dan Desalvo would take a hooking penalty to give the Penguins a short two man advantage.
Shortly after the Letestu penalty expired, Penguins captain and forward Garrett Wilson would score a power play goal. The Penguins would end the first period with a 1-0 lead over Cleveland.
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In true Blue Jackets fashion, the first period would start immediately with a Sam Vigneault hooking call. The Monsters would take another penalty in a few minutes, this time it would be Gabriel Carlsson for interference which would result in a Sam Lafferty power play goal.
The second period would end with a total of nine penalties, six of which were against the Monsters. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton would take a two goal lead into the third period.
The third period would be more of the same, a power play goal by Anthony Angello late in the third would ice the game for the Cleveland Monsters and Wilkes-Barre Scranton would walk out with a 3-0 win.
The eleven Penguins power plays, three of which resulted in a goal, were the difference maker in this game. On top of that, the Monsters went 0/6 on their power play opportunities leaving much to be desired on both sides of special teams.
Jean-Francois Berube once again stood on his head and has undoubtedly been the Cleveland Monsters most valuable player to start the season. Unfortunately Berube would be stuck with the loss on the stat line and the win would go to Penguins’ goaltender Anthony Peters.
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The Cleveland Monsters face the Penguins again on Saturday hoping for a bounce-back to an embarrassing loss.