Monsters Win Third Straight; Top Iowa 3-2

DES MOINES, IA – In the fifth of eight head-to-head meetings between the two teams this season, Cleveland’s Lake Erie Monsters defeated the Iowa Wild on Friday at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, IA by a final score of 3-2.

With the win, the Monsters’ third consecutive victory and fifth win in the team’s past six games, Lake Erie improved to 9-3-0-2 overall this season and with a 71.4 points percentage, remain alone in second place in the AHL’s Central Division standings.

After a scoreless opening period, Jaime Sifers provided the Monsters a 1-0 lead at 1:19 of the second when the veteran defenseman wired home his first marker of the season at even-strength on feeds from T.J. Tynan and Nick Moutrey.

The Wild battled back and tied the game at one at 12:38 on Grayson Downing’s third of the season, an even-strength score set up by Christoph Bertschy and Brett Sutter.

In the third, the Wild surged to their only lead of the hockey game less than one minute into the period when Michael Keranen snuck home a breakaway score that made it 2-1. The Monsters responded with an even-strength Justin Falk tally, his second of the season, at 5:20 of the frame with Tynan and Andrew Bodnarchuk picking up assists on the play before Sifers struck again with an even-strength center-point blast at 9:56, set up by Markus Hannikainen and Sonny Milano, which proved to be the decisive score in a 3-2 Lake Erie win.

Joonas Korpisalo improved to 4-1-2 in net for the Monsters this season with a 31-save performance while Leland Irving took the loss between the pipes for Iowa despite making 33 saves in defeat.

Next up for the Monsters, it’s a Saturday rematch with the Wild with full coverage from Des Moines underway at 1:30 pm.