Expansion team could have its eyes on goalie

With his hot play in Cleveland lately, and the way the NHL expansion draft rules are set up, goalie Anton Forsberg could be a candidate to become a Vegas Golden Knight next season.

If there is no room for Monsters goalie Anton Forsberg with the Columbus Blue Jackets, maybe he will have a future home with the Vegas Golden Knights.

Forsberg turned in another stellar performance on March 26 when he turned back all 37 shots the Iowa Wild peppered him with in a 4-0 drubbing by the Monsters in a key Central Division showdown at Quicken Loans Arena. He stopped 51 of 52 shots two nights earlier when the Monsters beat the Wild, 5-1.

The NHL will hold the expansion draft for the Golden Knights on June 20. Three days before that, all 30 current NHL teams must submit their list of protected players. Each team can protect only one goalie from being selected by Vegas.

Columbus has a difficult

decision to make with Sergei Bobrovsky and Joonas Korpisalo now playing with the playoff-bound Blue Jackets and Forsberg playing so well with the Monsters. Las Vegas must select 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goaltenders in the expansion draft. The list of available players will include AHL players under contract to the parent club. If those doing the selecting for the Golden Knights are wise, they will draft young players they can develop since they are unlikely to compete for the Stanley Cup in the next year or two. Forsberg is 24.

“I don’t really think about that,” Forsberg said after the game. “Right now we’re in a playoff race. That’s pretty much our focus and that’s my focus, too.”

The Monsters (32-27-34) have won five straight. They have 71 points, one point more than Charlotte in the Central Division, yet the Checkers are listed in fourth place and the Monsters in fifth because Charlotte has played one less game. The Monsters can turn that around on March 28 and 30 when they host the Checkers at The Q.

After a scoreless first period, Sonny Milano scored on a backhand shot over the left pad of Iowa goalie Alex Stalock at 7:28 of the second period.

The Monsters didn’t get some breathing room until T.J. Tynan made is 2-0 at 4:28 of the third period on a feed from Markus Hannikainen from behind the goal. Stalock skated out to handle a loose puck and got tangled up trying to get back to the net. Hannikainen, celebrating his 24th birthday on March 26, said he was trying to bank the puck off Stalock into the net. Instead the puck got through to Tynan and Tynan snapped it home.

Justin Scott and Hannikainen added empty-net goals in the final four minutes.

The story of the winning streak, though, has been the goaltending. Brad Thiessen stopped 45 of 46 shots when the Monsters beat the Chicago Wolves, 2-1, in a shootout on March 22. Together he and Forsberg stopped 133 of the last 135 shots faced.

“The one thing we talk about is or blue paint battles to allow Fors and Brad Thiessen to see the puck,” Coach John Madden said. “Anytime they can see the puck, we feel they have a great chance of stopping it.

“The thing I really like about our team the last couple games is there really haven’t been second chances. Fors isn’t giving up rebounds and when there are rebounds, our guys are taking care of them.”

Forsberg is 22-15-3-2 on the season