Monsters suffer carbon-copy loss to Wild

The AHL All-Star break is coming at a time when the Monsters need it most.

The Monsters were drilled by the Iowa Wild, 3-1, on Jan. 27 before 15,434 fans at Quicken Loans Arena in a carbon copy of the way much of the season has gone.

The home team missed three breakaways in the first period and failed to give goalie Joonas Korpisalo much defensive support.

Iowa, a 4-3 overtime winner at The Q on Jan. 25, led, 3-0, before Alex Broadhurst scored on a 2-on-1 rush to make it a two-goal game with 9:41 left in the second period, but the Monsters did little after that and fell to 13-22-4-3.

“What do you want me to say?” coach John Madden asked. “We could have had two or three goals (in the first period). We missed a couple good power play opportunities in the first and outshot them, 13-6.

“On back-to-back shifts (in the second period), they scored again. That’s just the way the game is going for us right now.”

The Wild grabbed a 1-0 lead on a goal by Ryan Murphy at 13:31 of the first period. Not long after, Markus Hannikainen, sent down from Columbus while the NHL is on its All-Star break, missed a breakaway when his shot clanged off the right post. It was a portent of things to come.

The Monsters outshot the Wild, 31-26, but often shots on goal is misleading. That doesn’t mean the Monsters had better scoring chances. Some shooters aim for a goalie’s pad to give a trailing teammate a chance to finish the play. It is one reason the Monsters started the night tied with San Jose for the fewest goals (96) in the league. San Jose has played two fewer games.

The Wild, 21-13-7-3, scored two goals 15 seconds apart midway through the second period to open a 3-0 lead. Defensive breakdowns, just as they did two nights earlier with Jeff Zatkoff in goal, put Korpisalo in a bind.

“I don’t know what the answer is when you’re getting chances and have breakdowns and they go in,” Madden said. “Could we have won the game? Absolutely. It’s the same thing we could have said the other night.

“These situations keep happening. We have to find a way to get through it. We can’t just keep playing good hockey and expect results. You have to have finish to your game and right now we don’t have any finish.”

The Monsters don’t play again until Feb. 1. They have the next three days off before gathering on Jan. 31 to resume practice.