After a first period “feeling-out” process, the Lake Erie Monsters displayed their outright domination of Game 1 in the Calder Cup Finals, winning 4-1. The Hershey Bears gave up four goals in a row over the last two periods to fall behind 0-1 in the series, ceding home-ice advantage to Lake Erie.
Justin Peters made his 17th consecutive start for the Bears, allowing four goals on 26 shots. He made three saves in the first period on breakaway chances for the Monsters. Anton Forsberg closed the door after the first period, finishing the game with 26 saves.
For the first time since March 14, 2014 against Syracuse, the Bears played a full game without taking a penalty. They also went 0-for-2 on their power play chances.
For most of the game, Hershey could not get any offense through Lake Erie’s pesky trap defense. The one time they did manage to break through cleanly resulted in their only goal. Jakub Vrana, the first selection of Washington two years ago, provided his eighth goal of the playoffs.
While Christian Djoos and Travis Boyd drove the net to draw the defense away, Chris Bourque passed straight to Vrana from the boards. C. Bourque’s assist gave him 77 career Calder Cup Playoffs assists, three behind Darren Haydar, a ninth-round selection who once played for the Monsters (2009-10).
Early in the second period, on the fourth breakaway yielded to the Monsters’ offense, they finally broke through. Alex Broadhurst found Daniel Zaar breaking across the open center ice logo, and he was not touched on his way to beating Peters with a low shot.
The teams ended the middle frame tied 1-1 on the scoreboard and the Bears leading 19-18 in shots on goal. With eight shots a piece over the following twenty minutes, the Bears finished leading the shot department 27-26.
Trent Vogelhuber, who had not scored since Game 1 against Rockford in the first round, granted the Monsters the game-winning tally. Former Cap Steve Eminger put up his second secondary assist of the game on the goal.
Ryan Stanton and Madison Bowey took the brunt of minutes against Lake Erie’s top scorers, which led to many uncharacteristic moments for the pairing. One such moment came when Zaar pick-pocketed Stanton in the defensive zone, making the Monsters’ third goal easy pickings.
Less than two minutes later, Markus Hannikainen put the game out of reach, deflecting a wrist shot from Dean Kukan. A few rows of traveling Monsters fans made up for the rest of the noise in GIANT Center, cheering their team to a Game 1 win.
Game 2 will be Friday in Hershey before the series shifts to Cleveland, Ohio to play at Quicken Loans Arena. Should the Bears win, all three games in Cleveland will be guaranteed.
