Cleveland Monsters Top Syracuse Crunch 4-3 in a Shootout

Provided by The Monsters

The Cleveland Monsters defeated the Syracuse Crunch in a shootout, 4-3, on Friday night at The Onondaga County War Memorial Arena.

With the win, the Monsters improve to 18-14-4-1 overall this season and with 41 points, remain alone in fifth place in the AHL’s North Division standings.

The Crunch opened the scoring in the first period when Alex Barre-Boulet netted an even-strength goal at 5:47 to give Syracuse an early 1-0 lead.

In the middle frame, the Monsters pulled even with Syracuse at 4:36 thanks to an unassisted even-strength strike from Alex Broadhurst off a Crunch turnover to tie things up, 1-1.

Cleveland grabbed their first lead of the night, 2-1, at 9:25 of the period when Maxime Fortier tallied his first AHL goal on a feed from Broadhurst.

Later in the frame, Barre-Boulet picked up his second goal of the night at 15:58 to even the score, 2-2.

Syracuse reclaimed the lead in the final period, getting an even-strength tally from Carter Verhaeghe at 4:31 to give the Crunch a 3-2 advantage.

The Monsters answered once again just before the final buzzer when Dan DeSalvo netted a power-play goal at 19:33 on assists from Mark Letestu and Adam Clendening, sending the contest into overtime tied, 3-3.

After the scoreless extra frame, Nikita Korostelev notched the game-winner in the fifth round of the shootout, securing a 4-3 road win for the Monsters.

Cleveland goaltender Brad Thiessen stopped 30 of the 33 shots he faced to improve to 4-2-1 on the season, while Crunch netminder Eddie Pasquale stopped 25 of the 28 shots he faced to drop to 12-6-3 on the year.

Next up for the Monsters, it’s a Saturday road matchup versus the Binghamton Devils at 7:05 pm.