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Cleveland Monsters successful playoff run falls short, but will still be a huge lesson for future Blue Jackets

The Cleveland Monsters fell in overtime of game 7 against the Hershey Bears. While they weren't able to win it all, there are a lot of positives to glean from this playoff run.

By Curtis Deem

The Cleveland Monsters celebrate a goal by Cleveland Monsters' James Malatesta (11) during the decisive game 7 of the AHL Eastern Conference Finals between the Hershey Bears and Cleveland Monsters on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, at the Giant Center in Hershey. The Bears won, 3-2, in overtime.
The Cleveland Monsters celebrate a goal by Cleveland Monsters' James Malatesta (11) during the decisive game 7 of the AHL Eastern Conference Finals between the Hershey Bears and Cleveland Monsters on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, at the Giant Center in Hershey. The Bears won, 3-2, in overtime. / Harrison Jones / USA TODAY NETWORK
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The Cleveland Monsters' season ended in heartbreak.

After battling back from a 3-0 series deficit and forcing game 7, the Monsters fought to the very end. Down 2-1 late in the third period, they forced overtime on James Malatesta's first career AHL playoff goal.

It seemed like their destiny was to overcome the odds and win this series. But that wasn't the case. Hershey scored in overtime, taking the game 3-2, winning the series in dramatic fashion.

It's not easy to glean positives or call a seven game series loss a "good thing", but in the case of tis year's Monsters, it's definitely not all bad. For the future of the Columbus Blue Jackets, I would argue that this was actually a great outcome overall.

We have seen this sort of run help the Jackets before, after all. In 2016, the Monsters (then called the Lake Erie Monsters) won the Calder Cup with a handful of future Blue Jackets on the squad.

On that team were several future NHLers; including Josh Anderson, Sonny Milano, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Zach Werenski, and Joonas Korpisalo. At the time, these were some of the top prospects in the organization. Sound familiar?

It should, because this year's Monsters team included a smattering of top prospects as well. David Jiricek, Luca del bel Belluz, James Malatesta, Stanislav Svozil, Hunter McKown, Jet Greaves, and several others; could all be NHL players in the next few years. The team was bolstered late in their playoff run by top prospect Denton Mateychuk as well.

This experience could be vital for these young players as they progress towards the NHL. But, outside of the experience they gained, there's another reason this playoff run was really important for the franchise as a whole.

Since winning the championship in 2016, the Monsters had made the AHL playoffs only one time - winning just one round in 2019. Simply making the playoffs this year was a building block for the entire organization; but making a deep run was huge.

Winning the whole thing would have been great, but it's possible that not winning could be just as important. On the next slide, I'll talk about my reasoning here.

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