SYRACUSE — The Cleveland Monsters are following the path of their big brother team and snagged a road win against the Syracuse Crunch in Game 1 of the 2019 Calder Cup Playoffs on Friday evening at War Memorial Arena in Syracuse.
The Monsters scored first with goals from Mark Letestu and Ryan MacInnis in the second period.
LET THERE BE LIGHT! 🚨#LightTheLand pic.twitter.com/6RWBUSXav9
— x-Cleveland Monsters (@monstershockey) April 20, 2019
Syracuse’s Alexander Volkov scored near the end of the second period, making the score 2-1. The Crunch scored again at the beginning of the third period with a shot from Cory Conacher.
Back to back goals from Kevin Stenlund and the game-winning goal from Zac Dalpe put the Monsters up 4-2. The Crunch scored one more time with a goal from Carter Verhaeghe, but an empty-net goal from Cleveland’s Dillion Simpson put the Monsters up 5-3 in their victory.
The Monsters are the AHL affiliate of the Columbus Blue Jackets, while the Crunch are the affiliate of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
On Tuesday, The Blue Jackets upset the top-seeded Lightning, sweeping them in the first round of the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the Monsters are following suit early in their series.
Cleveland nearly missed the playoffs, but after finishing the season with a 5-1 road win over the Toronto Marlies and getting lucky with a much-needed loss from the Belleville Senators on April 14th, the Cleveland Monsters qualified for the Calder Cup Playoffs as the fourth seed in the North Division.
Similar to their NHL affiliate team, the Crunch are the top-seeded team in the North Division and ended the season with the second best record in the league.
Cleveland leads the series with Syracuse 1-0. The Monsters will look to upset the Crunch in Syracuse again on Saturday at 7 p.m. in Game 2 of the best-of-five series.
