California has been kind to the Lake Erie Monsters thus far in their best-of-seven Western Conference Finals series with the Ontario Reign.
On Sunday, the Monsters took advantage of a delayed penalty when Markus Hannikainen scored at 12:28 to give Lake Erie a 1-0 lead.
Lukas Sediak made it 2-0 just 22 seconds after the first goal to extend the lead to 2-0.
“They’ve been very opportunistic; especially early in games,” Ontario’s Paul Bissonnette said after the game. “I don’t necessarily think our starts have been terrible. They play kind of a different style than we’ve seen all year. We just got to kind of keep them off the transition … we just got to wear them down and play Kings hockey.”
TJ Tyman scored in the second period to make it 3-0 for the Monsters.
The Reign did not break through until the third period when Bissonnette found the back of the Monsters’ net when he beat Anton Forsberg to make it 3-1.
Kevin Gravel make it a bit more interesting when he cut the deficit to one with a goal.
Peter Budaj took the loss on 18 saves; Forsberg made 27 saves for the win.
Game 3 is Tuesday, May 24 at 7:00 pm in Cleveland.
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