Manitoba Moose

MANITOBA KICKS OFF ROAD SEASON WITH WIN IN CLEVELAND

By Christina Caligiuri

After giving up the first goal of the night, the Moose scored three in a row to earn a 3-2 victory over the Lake Erie Monsters on Friday night in front of 3806 fans at the Quicken Loans Arena. Eric Walsky notched his first of the season while veterans Marty Murray and Mike Keane also recorded goals. The Moose will look to sweep the Monsters tomorrow night in Cleveland.

Manitoba was handed the first powerplay of the night when Josh Aspenlind was fined for tripping at 3:53. Despite playing with an extra attacker, the visitors were only able to register one shot on Monsters goaltender Tyler Weiman before play returned to even-strength.

At 8:49, Dusty Collins returned the favor when he was sent to the sin bin for kneeing. The Monsters were able to bring their shot count to seven on the man-advantage but couldn’t break Manitoba’s penalty killers or netminder Cory Schneider.

Neither team could break their goose-egg in the first 20 minutes, but the Moose were leading in shots 10-8.

Nathan McIver and Guillaume Debiens’ back-to-back penalties gave the home team four more powerplay minutes in the early half of the second period. Manitoba’s penalty killers continued to play sharp and the visiting Moose escaped the four-minutes unscathed. 

At 15:08 the Monsters capitalized on their 12th shot of the night. Captain Brian Willsie drove to the net and beat Schneider on his stick side to open the scoring and put the Monsters on top.

After giving up the game’s opening goal, the Moose answered right back two minutes later. With a pass from Nolan Baumgartner, Eric Walsky earned his first point of the season on the clubs 21st shot to knot the game back up at one.

With Lake Erie down a man in the third period, the Moose struck again. With an initial shot by Eric Walsky, Marty Murray deflected the rebound between Weiman’s legs to lead the game for the first time, 2-1.

Manitoba earned some cushion room at 6:55 when Mike Keane blasted a rebound into the empty net to put his club in front, 3-1.

At the 14:00 minute mark, Manitoba’s lead was cut. Monsters Captain Brian Willsie snuck the puck between Schneider’s blocker and body to inch closer, 3-2.

In the final minute of play the Monsters decided to pull Weiman and put in an extra attacker. With 11 seconds left to play, Mike Funk was handed a cross checking penalty putting the home team on a 6-on-4 advantage.  Schneider turned away an array of shots and a clearing of the puck killed off the remaining time allowing the Moose to walk away with a 3-2 victory.