Official 4/08/08 Game Thread - Monsters vs. Crunch

Lake Erie Monsters (26-38-6-7) vs. Syracuse Crunch (42-26-2-6)
Date: Tuesday, April 8th
Time: 7:00 p.m. EDT
Arena: Quicken Loans Arena
TV: FSN Ohio
Radio: Listen live here to ESPN 850 WKNR
Webcast: Live through B2

Tuesday's Quick Facts:
Tonight is the eighth and final meeting of the year for Lake Erie and Syracuse. The Monsters are 3-2-2-0 against the Crunch so far, and are looking for their first home win over Syracuse tonight. Three of the last four matchups between the teams have resulted in overtime.

The Crunch has won 11 straight games, and have put together a 16-0-0-3 string. They have not lost in regulation since February 18th, when they fell, 5-0, to none other than Lake Erie.

The first-ever win in Lake Erie's franchise history came against Syracuse on October 20th, 2007.

Brad Richardson and Wyatt Smith have led the Monsters against the Crunch with five points each. Richardson has recorded four goals and an assist, while Smith has contributed three goals and two helpers in the series. Eric Healey and Jamie Lundmark have recorded four points apiece against the Crunch this season, both with one goal and three assists.

this game should be a very good game, even though syracuse is already in the playoffs, i think they will come out hard since the blue jackets did not make the playoffs, so alot of the youngins that played against the blues will probably be back in a crunch sweater for tonight and the playoffs.
we need to come out hard, play physical for 3 periods and not give them anything.
it would be nice to win the season series against the crunch.

i'm missing this one. have lots of fun and see you saturday.

pre-game tailgate/warmup on saturday?

Well that was certainly an interesting game.

well at least we gave it a try, syracuse is a very tough team right now, we kept it somewhat close and even though they lost a two goal deficit is way better than a 5 goal deficit.
love just loves to fight and i was right there with him, konopka got ejected not only for fighting but also for jaw ******* to the referee and then trying to start some s**t with the crowd, and if we were'nt on the other side (we we're behind the monsters bench) we would've given him some s**t too.
defense was shaky but did kill of that 5 on 3 and i've got to tell you those refs really suck, that cross checking penaly should've had a dive attached to it as well, also they missed some interference calls on syracuse, slashing on syracuse and overall the refs just continue to amaze me in how they can make bad calls like they do. we gave the refs some s**t on they're way out to let them know what we felt about they're sorry lame *** penalty calls.
this i think will be the start of a very heated rivalry along with grand rapids, next season will be interesting to see.
DID ANYONE SEE THE OWN GOAL, the score should've been 3-2, does anybody know who put that own goal in? oh well onto hamilton, hopefully we can take the last one from them.

I *think* it was the first goal of the second period. I didn't see who it was though.

I think the D was more physical last night, I'm not sure they were playing their positions properly, but I thought most everyone was trying. Being down by 3 is rough. It was nice to see us score and then score again.

During the season ticket holder get-together before the game, the front office mentioned some interesting facts. The first was that the Avalanche management apologized to them for the performance of the Monsters this year. Originally Freeagents didn't want to sign with us because they didn't want to play in-front of audiences of 500. Now that we're in the top 10 markets as far as attendance, that should change. The Monster's jersey was the #1 selling item in the Cavaliers team shop, (Including the Cavalier's merchandise) And there were more Early Bird Season ticket holders for LEM games signed up than the Cavs have-had so far this year, and the Cavs started their campaign a month earlier that the LEMS.

Also, Mitch Love was on a video saying that the LEMS had the best facility in the AHL. That may go without saying, but it's nice to hear the players say that.

There was some Q&A, mostly about radio coverage, and they mentioned that they are going to try to not get the LEM games pre-empted by basketball on WKNR next year. (Try being the key word) A post-game call-in show was also mentioned, but the management mentioned that it won't come right away due to the overall audience size, but it's something they want to do.

Lastly, we won't be having an NHL pre-game in Cleveland this year. They admitted that they accidentally missed the dead-line to request the NHL come to Cleveland. (Kudos for being honest) And they did sign-up for the 2009/10 season, so the NHL will come then. They did not know which teams. They made some requests (Avs, Red Wings, Pittsburgh, etc) but it appears that the NHL decides who plays where.

It was informative. Seems like this season was a big success. Having a winning team next year will surely help everything get better moving forward. At least the Avs recognize that we're serious about hockey in this town, and I believe next-year we'll see a marked improvement in the way the team plays as a team and not as individuals. (Hopefully)

was that on-ice thing only for full season ticket holders or all season ticket holders, i have a partial game plan and we stayed after all the hoopla wore down and saw what was going out on the ice and was like what is this? maybe i should read my e-mail once in awhile. if it was for all season ticket holders oh well.
i think it was actually the second goal, but i do know we helped them out last night by doing that but yeah the defense tried, they did block alot of shots and it was good to see them score @ least two to bring it back to being a game and not a rout.
the avalanche organization shouldnt have to apologize for the teams performance, if free agents have a problem playing for nobody then we dont need them, but i still think this team we have is a good team and will be looking forward for next season.

thanks for that recap. i might have to see about STH after all for next year. i'm a cheap SOB, but that conference sounds very respectful and thankful. kudos monsters office.

btw - the monsters have the coolest stationary/letterhead ever. they should remove the official stuff and sell it in the gift shop. i'd buy lots.

I believe it was for all season ticket holders. You had to sign up for it, however. Don't feel too bad about it though, we missed the final brawl at the end of the third because we were walking behind the arena.

where and when did you have to sign up?, yeah that last one was what set everything off, mitch sucker punched the guy before he got his gloves off to take on mitch, then konopka cried like a little baby and then started with the ref, plus he was going to get a game misconduct anyway with the 3 majors he got, hopefully we screwed up syracuse for their first round playoff series.

The sign up thing came in an email.

KJ you make some good points. I'm just not that angry about it, I guess. Call me simple, but I've enjoyed my season tickets. I've renewed for next year. But I can appreciate why you wouldn't.

Hmm, nevermind, his response went *poof*.