The Lake Erie Monsters (Columbus Blue Jackets) paid their first visit to the MTS Centre in 4 years to take on the new Manitoba Moose. The Moose entered the third game of their inaugural 4 game homestand looking for their first win of the season with Connor Hellebuyck drawing the assignment between the pipes for the home team.
The first period was a fairly evenly played 20 minutes – the big difference for the Moose 
vs their first games against the Ontario Reign was they were competing and winning battles down low. You could tell the level of urgency was amped up this evening and it paid off. With the Moose on the power play, Joel Armia picked the top corner glove side on Anton Forsberg to give Manitoba the lead at 11:57. It was a shot worthy of a former first round pick and hopefully the sign of things to come for the talented Armia.
The Monsters took it to the Moose to start the second period with sustained pressure and tested the steady Hellebuyck a few times, finally breaking through with a knuckler at 13:45 from Lukas Sedlak that deflected off Moose forward Chase De Leo. The pressure from the Monsters continued and they took the lead at 15:13 with a quick shot from Michael Chaput, left wide open in the slot after the Moose were guilty of puck-watching behind their goal. The shots on goal after 2 periods were a lopsided 28-11 in favour of the visitors.
A scrappy 3rd period yielded little for the Moose and with Hellebuyck on the bench for the extra attacker, Lake Erie put the game away with an empty netter at 19:13. Final score Lake Erie 3, Manitoba 1. The 3 stars were 1) Michael Chaput (LEM) 2) Joel Armia (MBM) Â 3) Markus Hannikainen (LEM)
Next Moose home action is Saturday October 24th in the rematch with the Lake Erie Monsters
You must be logged in to post a comment.