CLEVELAND — After sweeping the Toronto Marlies in the first round of the Calder Cup Playoffs, the Cleveland Monsters are on to the North Division Semifinals. They’ll face the Laval Rocket, who finished the regular season with the best record in the AHL.
“I think, where we’re at right now, we should feel good about ourselves and know what we need to do and have all the confidence in the world we can beat anyone in one game, just with what we went through here last weekend,” said head coach Trent Vogelhuber.
The Monsters moved past the first round best-of-three series after a pair of overtime wins, and they know their opponents are only getting stronger.
“It’s a mental battle, and that’s what playoffs is. You gotta be able to stick with it. There’s gonna be a lot of ups and downs throughout the whole playoffs, and you gotta be emotionally stable,” said Monsters center Luca Del Bel Belluz.
“It’s not getting any easier. The earlier you realize it, the easier it actually becomes,” said Monsters defenseman Denton Mateychuk.
Reinforcements from the Columbus Blue Jackets, goaltender Jet Greaves and Mateychuk have provided a playoff boost.
“There’s no more important position this time of year as a goaltender. Jet is as steady as they come back there for us. The best record we had was when Dents was here with us for those 20+ games, and that’s not necessarily by accident, so [they're] massive additions,” said Vogelhuber.
The Monsters will open the best-of-five semifinals with back-to-back home games, which provides an opportunity to gain an early advantage against the Rocket.
“The mentality is you’re the aggressors. They gotta play in our building, and we can bring the fight to them a little bit. That should be the mentality of our guys, so not complaining that we get to start at home,” said Vogelhuber.
Game 1 is Wednesday, April 30, and Game 2 is Friday, May 2, at Rocket Arena. Both games start at 7 p.m. The rest of the series will play out at Laval.
Carly Mascitti is a sports anchor at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on Twitter @carlymascitti.
