Friday’s game between North Division rivals started out very strong for the Monsters. Dictating the pace and working in the Abbotsford end payed off with two goals in two minutes. Paul Carey notching his second of the season followed by Luke Walker also getting his second of the season. Things started to get shaky after that though. 11:50 into the first period Monsters went on the power play due to a Sven Bärtschi tripping call. This leads to Lake Erie giving up a short handed goal at 12:36 in the first period. At this point in the game the Heat started to dictate and impose their will on the Monsters. Abbotsford would go on to score two more goals before the Monsters would answer on a Mike Sgarbossa tally. That would be the last time Lake Erie would be on the score sheet that game. The Heat were able to pick apart Aittokallio’s glove hand for the majority of the night and the final score reflected that. Lake Erie dropped the first meeting of the season between the two teams 5-3.

Saturday was a repeat match up between the Monsters and the Heat in name only. The Monsters got on the board early with a goal from Brad Malone. Scoring went back and forth in the first period leaving the game tied at 2 after 20 minutes. Abbotsford had the only tally in the second period to take a 3-2 lead in to the final frame. The Monsters came out in the third period looking to play. Mike Sgarbossa tied the game up with 8:40 to go in the third period. The Monsters out shot the Heat 9 to 3 in the third period, but couldn’t get the go ahead goal for the win. Things stayed deadlocked through the overtime period as well.

Onward to the shoot out.

Lake Erie comes out on top in the shoot out after two very nasty shoot out goals from Lerg and Sgarbossa. Those goals can be seen here via AHL live. Abbotsford was only able to get one shot by Calvin Pickard.

The Monsters begin a seven game road trip Thursday November 1st in Peoria facing the Rivermen at 7:05 pm CDT.