The Cleveland Monsters fell to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms (29-33-3-3) 4-3 in a shootout on Sunday afternoon at PPL Center. With the shootout loss, the Monsters are now 35-26-6-3 and are currently in third place in the AHL’s North Division standings.
Cleveland’s Riley Bezeau drew first blood with a goal at 10:21 of the opening frame assisted by Tate Singleton and Hunter McKown while Mikael Pyyhtiä extended the Monsters’ lead with a power-play tally at 18:54 off feeds from Will Butcher and Brendan Gaunce to make it 2-0 Cleveland heading into the second.
Lehigh Valley’s Jacob Gaucher scored the only goal of the middle frame at 15:24 bringing the score to 2-1 Cleveland through 40 minutes.
The Phantoms’ Boris Katchouk slotted in the equalizer at 7:59 followed by a goal from Noah Powell at 11:50 to put Lehigh Valley up 3-2 but the Monsters’ James Malatesta swooped in with the tying goal at 16:37 with help from Bezeau to send the game into extra time.
Following a scoreless overtime period, Lehigh Valley’s Jack Berglund score the game-winning goal in the shootout to give the Phantoms the 4-3 victory.
Cleveland’s Ivan Fedotov stopped 38 shots in defeat while Lehigh Valley’s Carson Bjarnason made 24 saves for the win.
