The Cleveland Monsters beat the Syracuse Crunch 6-4 on Wednesday night at Upstate Medical University Arena. With the win, the Monsters lead the North Division Finals best-of-five series to move on to the Eastern Conference Finals to face the Hershey Bears.
Jake Gaudet struck first with a goal at 14:16 of the opening frame assisted by Tyler Angle and Jakub Zboril, but the Crunch responded with a power-play tally from Alex Barré-Boulet at 16:38 sending the teams to the first intermission tied 1-1. The Monsters led off the middle frame after Stefan Matteau converted on the man advantage at 11:02 with helpers from David Jiricek and Owen Sillinger. Syracuse came back scoring two goals from Cole Koepke at 16:47 and Jordy Bellerive at 17:52 sending Cleveland to the final intermission trailing 3-2. A flurry of offense exploded in the third period beginning with Alex Whelan at 1:02 off feeds from Justin Pearson and Josh Dunne. Dunne added a goal of his own at 9:29 assisted by Whelan and Bjork, but the Crunch responded with a tally from Barré-Boulet at 16:32 to once again tie the score. The Monsters put away the game starting when Luca Del Bel Belluz recorded a marker at 17:42 off a feed from Trey Fix-Wolansky followed by an empty-net tally from Roman Ahcan assisted by Bjork securing the 6-4 win.
Cleveland’s Malcolm Subban stopped 25 shots for the win while Syracuse’s Matt Tomkins made 21 saves in defeat.
The Monsters and Bears drop the puck on the Eastern Conference Finals on Thursday, May 30, at 7:00 p.m. at Giant Center. Follow the games with full coverage on FOX Sports 1350 ‘The Gambler’, AHLTV and the Monsters Hockey Network.
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