Laval sinks Monsters with three-goal third

Dillon Simpson – not to put all the blame on him – is a skating illustration of everything that has gone wrong for the Monsters this season.

Simpson scored a goal from the point with 6.3 seconds left in the second period March 6 to cut the Laval lead to 2-1 and shift all the momentum the Monsters way heading into the third period at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

Then, just 2:04 into the third period, Simpson missed by just an inch or two getting his stick blade on a shot taken by Laval left wing Jake Lucchini from the left circle.

Instead of the shot being blocked by Simpson, the puck sailed over the right shoulder of Monsters goalie Brad Thiessen into the top right corner of the net. The tally started a three-goal burst that ended in the Rocket trouncing the home team, 5-1.

The crowd of 13,056, lured to the FieldHouse on Oliver Bjorkstrand bobblehead night, left the arena disappointed again. Bjorkstrand was the hero of the 2016 Calder Cup championship team. The 2019-20 Monsters are in desperate need of some of the magic that team produced four years ago, but these Monsters, with so many players called up to the Blue Jackets or injured, sunk to 24-30-4-2 with their fourth straight loss in regulation.

“They’re a good team without the puck,” Monsters coach Mike Eaves said. “We’re a little bit snake-bitten right now, if I could use that term.

“We got some really good looks in the third period. I thought we battled. We got some pucks to the net. Their goalie (Michael McNiven) made some saves and they get a power play goal on a high tip that goes bar down.”

It isn’t that the Monsters aren’t playing hard. They are. But they had just three shots on goal halfway through the game and just seven by the end of the second period. The Monsters had 14 shots on goal in the third period.

“The question that was just posed to the boys was ‘Does anybody have any trouble with anyone in this room in terms of effort?’” Eaves said. “The answer was ‘Absolutely not.’ With that being said, we’ll put that in our hip pocket, get skating again and get ready for our next challenge.”

The Monsters are off until March 10 when they play the first of back-to-back games against the Checkers in Charlotte.

The Rocket scored two of their five goals on the power play March 6. Lucchini and Joe Cox each scored two goals.