Monsters score six straight, stun Stars

Twenty-four hours after playing one of their worst games of the season, the Monsters played one of their best to snap a threegame losing streak and stay alive in the AHL Western Conference playoffs.

The Monsters spotted Texas a 3-0 first period lead on March 18 at Quicken Loans Arena and then scored six unanswered goals — two in the second and four in the third — to raise their record to 28-273-4 and stay within striking distance of fourth-place Iowa in the Central Division. The six goals were the most for the Monsters since scoring seven on Oct. 25 in a 7-3 win at Iowa, and the crowd of 14,317 on Autism Awareness Night loved every one of them. The crowd was the second largest of the season.

“We just found a way to gut one out,” said team captain Ryan Craig. “In this league you play backto-back.

“We had everyone jumping in and contributing tonight.”

Sonny Milano and Zac Dalpe followed with emptynet goals in the final two minutes.

One night earlier, the Stars skunked the Monsters,

4-0.

Craig scored the gamewinning goal with 4:53 left in the third period to break a 3-3 tie. The play began when T.J. Tynan dumped the puck in. Texas goalie Justin Peters went behind the net to clear it. His pass bounced off the yellow plate at the base of the boards back out to the front of the net. Craig buried the puck inside the left post before Peters could get in position to block the shot.

“Teams that work hard usually get lucky,” Coach John Madden said. “It was probably one of our best games of the year, even though we were down 3-0 after the first period.

“Pick someone. Everyone was driving the bus. Everybody was contributing. Everybody was physical at the right times.

“You need that with our type of team.”

After the 4-0 loss, Madden said his team had too many passengers and no bus driver.

Anton Forsberg gave up the four goals on March 17 and the three first period goals March 18. Madden thought briefly about switching to Brad Thiessen for the second period, but just as quickly decided to stick with Forsberg. Forsberg stopped all 15 shots he faced in the final two periods.

“I didn’t think any of the goals were Fors’ fault,” Madden said. ”He’s our goto guy. He wants to battle. He’s been great for us all year. He deserved to stay in the game.”

The Monsters finally awakened from a scoreless slumber that extended into an eighth period when Marc Andre-Bergeron hit a one-timer from the right circle at 7:24 of the second period to slice the Texas lead to 3-1.

Bergeron’s goal was set up on a tape-to-tape pass from Sonny Milano from low in the left circle.

Milano made it a onegoal game at 14:03 of the middle period with a shot from behind the goal line that bounced off the back of Peters into the net.

The goal had to bring back a flood of bad memories for Peters.

He was in goal for the Hershey Bears — at the same end of the ice — when Oliver Bjorkstrand scored the Calder Cup winning goal with 1.9 seconds left in overtime on June 11 last year.

Jordan Maletta scored the tying goal on a breakaway at 7:28 of the third period when he beat Peters on a low shot to the glove side.