From the Monsters Desk: 2014/15 Opening Day at Grand Rapids!

Greetings Monsters fans! The regular season is upon us, LEM open up the quest for the 2015 Calder Cup tonight in Grand Rapids against the Griffins with a rematch tomorrow night at Quicken Loans Arena.

News

- Lake Erie announced its captains Wednesday, defenseman Bruno Gervais will wear the C this year replacing Bryan Lerg. Alternate captains will be LW Andrew Agozzino and C Ben Street. Coach Dean said on the radio Wednesday night that there is room for another 'A' but it hasn't been handed out yet.

- The Monsters played a couple of games last weekend vs old friends the Grand rapids Griffins. Friday night's tilt took place in Windsor, Ontario and LEM prevailed 5-2 thanks to 1st period goals from Hishon, Lauridsen and Sgarbossa and then playing solid defense from there on in.

Saturday night's game was played in Ft Wayne at the home of our affiliate Komets and again 3 first period goals allowed the Monsters to cruise to the win 6-3.

Pre-season Stats:

Mike Sgarbossa 4G

Paul Carey 1G/1A

Joey Hishon 1G/1A

Kenny Ryan 1G/1A

Markus Lauridsen 1G/1A

Cody Corbett 2A

Gabe Beaupre 2A

Stefan Elliott 1G

James Martin 1G

Cody Sol 1G

Michael Schumacher 1A

Garrett Meurs 1A

Nate Condon 1A

Sami Aittokallio 30min, 10/11 saves

Roman Will 30min 19/20 saves

Calvin Pickard 60min 36/39 saves

Trevor Cheek and Dan Maggio played in both games

CJ Severyn definitely played in Windsor and Karl Stollery, Joey Leach, Mitch Heard and Shawn Szydlowski were on the trip but not mentioned.

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2014/15 Roster

Forwards (17): Troy Bourke, Paul Carey, Trevor Cheek, Mitchell Heard, Garrett Meurs, Mike Sgarbossa, Colin Smith, Reid Petryk*, Daniel Maggio*, Michael Schumacher*, Kenny Ryan*, Samuel Henley, Joey Hishon, Andrew Agozzino, Borna Rendulic, Ben Street & Tomas Vincour

Defense (8): Gabriel Beaupre, Cody Corbett, Stefan Elliott, Markus Lauridsen, Karl Stollery, Bruno Gervais, Maxim Noreau, Duncan Siemens

Goalie (3): Sami Aittokallio, Roman Will, Calvin Pickard

* - LEM Contract, all others on Avalanche contracts

I'm not going to speculate on lines/pairs too much here, but Sgarbossa & Carey played a lot together in practice and in the pre-season games and the 4th line looks like it might be Heard/Cheek/Maggio. The first line could be something like Schumacher/Agozzino/Hishon. We'll have a better idea after this weekend's games.

Nate Condon, Joey Leach and Francois Tremblay will start the season in Fort Wayne with the brother Komets, but still are signed to LEM contracts. Marcus Power was signed over the summer to an AHL contract but has decided to go to college instead. Ben Street and Tomas Vincour are on the injured list.

28 players is quite a bit too many, Coach Dean has said he doesn't like to keep guys around if they're not playing and having 3 goalies makes no sense whatsoever. Depending on injuries (Street & Vincour are injured for sure) we might see... something done with the extras in the next few weeks.

Schedule:

Friday at Grand Rapids 7:00pm ET, Radio call on AM 1420 WHK

Saturday vs Grand Rapids 7:00pm ET, Radio call on AM 850 WKNR

Links:

Monsters opening day roster

Game preview from the LEM site

Plain Dealer article on the new roster

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Alrighty, the Avs are off Friday night so take in our beloved Monsters opening the AHL season if you like. Saturday night's game starts 2 hours before the Avs home opener, perfect for tailgating. As usual I will be tweeting @mckinley06 and updating the thread during the games with summaries the morning after. Back next week with highlights and stats and who knows what else. Enjoy!