Official 4/05/08 Game Thread - Monsters at Bulldogs

Lake Erie Monsters (26-37-6-7) vs. Hamilton Bulldogs (32-32-3-7)
Date: Saturday, April 5th
Time: 7:00 p.m. EDT
Arena: Copps Coliseum
Radio: Listen live here to ESPN 850 WKNR
Webcast: Live through B2

Saturday's Quick Facts:
The Monsters and Bulldogs are playing a weekend home-and-home. Lake Erie won in Cleveland last night, 5-4, in a shootout. The teams headed straight north after the game for tonight's game in Hamilton. In last night's win, T.J. Hensick posted three points (2G, 1A), and Jamie Lundmark added two assists. Jason Bacashihua recorded 45 saves on 49 shots.

Last night was Lake Erie's first win over Hamilton this season. The Monsters were
0-2-1-2 in the series, heading into Friday. With the win, the Monsters overtook Grand Rapids for fifth place in the North Division, now nine points behind fourth-place Hamilton.

With his three points last night, rookie T.J. Hensick has had 10 multi-point games this season.

I finally got to see a game. We sat right beside the Monsters bench in Hamilton. It wasn't much of an effort by most of the Lake Erie guys, but it was fun. We were most dissapointed that Drummond wasn't playing. My thoughts were that the whole team with a few exceptions could use some conditioning. I think Jillson could be a 3rd or 4th deffensemen in the NHL if he was in great shape, and it was funny that he revved up his game when some girls in the stands started shouting how hot he was. Wieman was better than I thought he would be. Boychuk would be better if he tried more. The biggest thing of the whole team is that they don't seem to play as a team, there were some really good scoring chances if players had passed the puck at the right moment, that and taking shots when they had them and the outcome might have been different.
Thanks so much to the trainers for the info on Drummond and for giving my daughter Lundmark's broken stick. The crowd was giving us a hard time for cheering for the visitors so the stick made it worthwhile!

Sometimes they come together really well and do play as a team, but it's not often. Part of that has to do with the consistent roster changes that have been going on. The team has been too dynamic to really know who you are passing to and whether they'll be there or not.

They were probably tired after the hard fought game the day before. If I was on the team, I would have went out partying that night, and probably not recover the next day. But that's me.