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The beloved Monsters head to beautiful North Carolina for a Friday/Sunday set with the hapless Checkers. Wait, the Checkers are right behind us in the standings? Yeesh.
News
- Reports out of Vancouver had Mason Geertsen joining up with Lake Erie on Thursday. Cannot confirm yet and as of press time there was nothing on the transaction wire about an ATO.
- Listen, getting Geertsen is great and everything, but maybe there should be others hooking up with ATOs as well. Like every other team in the league is doing. Are things going so swell that we need no help? Does the fact there are only 12 healthy forwards on the roster not concern anyone with the authority to sign new players? I realize that Mat Clark and Ben Youds are basically our PTOs right now, and Freddie Hamilton would be too if he wasn't busy with the Avs, but there are scads of hungry young players dying for a chance to play professional hockey next year. Let's indulge one or two, for a goof.
- The Brother Komets bus got a flat tire yesterday and being hockey players they all helped change it rather than chill on board.
How many #Komets does it take to change a tire? pic.twitter.com/HWS3nzVaaK
— Pat Nagle (@PattyNags) March 26, 2015
Playoff Picture
The Monsters sit in their accustomed 12th place with 66 points and 12 games left to make something wonderful happen. Western Conference cutoff for the Calder Cup looks like 85 points right now but it's been dropping lately. Here's what it will take:
10+ wins
9-2-1
8-0-3
no problemo
Recap - Rockford
For a game not worthy of recapping I'll put this forth: Poor 1st period, comeback due mainly to score effects, lost by 1 goal in the end. That's selling the effort of most of the team short, which I definitely don't mean to do, but it was terribly predictable. They really did play well after the damage was done, I'm just tired of watching the same idiotic play by an extremely small number of player(s) on the team sabotage things early in games.
Preview - Charlotte
The Checkers came to Cleveland back in early February and split a weekend set with the Monsters. Just like I said back then, they don't score much and give up plenty and we should really take the opportunity to beat them twice and keep what remains of playoff hopes alive.
Lines/Pairs from Wednesday:
Aggz/Street/Petryk
Vinny/Cheek/Mags
Bourke/Mitch/Ryan
Schumi/Sam/Meurs
Youds/Clark
Moose/Elliott
Duncan/Bruno
Picks
Sami
Scratched: Corbs, Beaupre
Injured: Smitty, Noreau
Barring word from on high that Geertsen must play, I don't see many lineup changes other than I would guess we do a 7D/11F in at least one of the games.
Schedule
Friday night at Charlotte 7:00pm in the ET, radio on WHK
Sunday afternoon at Charlotte 1:00pm in the ET, radio on 99x
Links
Preview from LEM
Next up
Some home games! Tues/Weds vs Milwaukee and Friday against the Marlies
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Neither game conflicts with the beloved Avs so stop by and support your Monsters down the stretch. News and recaps here and on twitter as they become available. Enjoy!