Trent Vogelhuber left the ice yesterday and had a smile on his face.
He wants to be a busy man over the coming weeks, as the Cleveland Monsters head coach hopes his squad can replicate last year’s deep run in the Calder Cup Playoffs. The top affiliate of the Blue Jackets begins the AHL postseason tonight with a home game vs. Toronto, and you could tell Vogelhuber can't wait to get started.
“I’m super excited,” he said. “It’s my favorite time of year. My favorite part of this job is standing behind a bench come playoff time.”
Many of the names are the same, but this is a different Monsters team that will not only try to replicate last year’s success – the squad made it all the way to overtime in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final – but surpass it
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There’s a good mix of skill and grit, of grizzled veterans and precocious youngsters, plus a goaltender the Monsters believe can steal a game or a series. But it’s also a team that needs to zero in on its game, as a red-hot start to the season that featured a 10-game winning streak in November was followed by an inconsistent finish that saw the team finish fifth in the AHL North Division with a 35-26-5-6 record.
A year ago, Cleveland won three games in three nights to close the regular season and win a hotly contested North Division championship, which served as a springboard to winning playoff series vs. Belleville and Syracuse and pushing eventual champion Hershey to the brink.
This season, Cleveland lost its last three regular-season contests, all on the road, though by the end the Monsters were more prepping for the postseason rather than jockeying for standings positions.
Despite that finish, it's a squad that believes it knows what it has to do to have success in the postseason, and the energy was palpable Wednesday as it went through its final full practice before tonight’s game against the Marlies at Cleveland’s Rocket Arena.
“I think not straying away from our game plan,” forward Trey Fix-Wolansky said when asked the key to playing the team’s best game. “We’re a pretty fast team, and when we use that speed on the forecheck and turn pucks over, we can be pretty dangerous offensively. I think it’s just playing with the puck, and when Toronto has the puck, getting above them and playing that tight-checking game and hoping they make turnovers.”
The Monsters also should be boosted by the return of two key pieces in goalie Jet Greaves and defensemen Denton Mateychuk. Greaves is the heart and soul of the team, the franchise's all-time leader in wins who is coming off five straight victories with the Blue Jackets to turn heads across the NHL. The 24-year-old who keyed Cleveland’s postseason run a year ago posted a .920 save percentage this year that placed fifth in the league and has allowed just 19 goals in his last 12 AHL starts.
Mateychuk, meanwhile, was a key piece for the Blue Jackets after joining the team midway through the season, and the 20-year-old was leading AHL defensemen in scoring (9-16-25 in 27 games) at the time of his promotion to the NHL. Named an AHL All-Star, Mateychuk was particularly good on the power play at that level, and the Monsters are hoping his return can help spark that critical unit in the postseason.
“With Jet, we knew he was unreal,” forward Luca Del Bel Belluz said. “He’s such a special goalie and person. It's obviously huge for us to have him back. And you see with Dents, he’s such a dynamic player. We joke about, he’s like a 4-in-1 defenseman – he has power play, PK, 5-on-6, 6-on-5. Anything you can get out of a defenseman, he has it. It’s huge for him to get back with us.”
They join a squad led by Fix-Wolansky, the Monsters’ all-time leading scorer and AHL All-Star who tied for 13th in the league in points (26-34-60); young center Del Bel Belluz, another AHL All-Star who tied for 13th in the league with 27 goals among his 53 points; and veteran wing Rocco Grimaldi, who was in the top 20 in the AHL in both assists and points with a 17-41-58 line.
Hunter McKown (13-18-31, including 12 points in the last 14 games) and Roman Ahcan (18 goals) have added depth scoring, while veterans Madison Bowey and Cole Clayton will help lead the defense. The squad has been boosted by late-season additions Luca Pinelli up front and Guillaume Richard on defense, as the two CBJ draft picks joined after their junior and college seasons, respectively.
Cleveland also returns forwards Mikael Pyyhtia, James Malatesta and Justin Pearson as well as defenseman Stanislav Svozil from last year’s team, and the Monsters hope that playoff experience will pay off.
“You know every game is going to be tight and every game is going to be high-pressure,” Vogelhuber said. “There’s gonna be a 6-on-5 or a 5-on-6. The high-pressure moments are going to come. The bad things are going to happen where it feels like on the road, the roof is going to fall down on you. It’s preparing for that mentally, knowing they’re gonna come, and leaning into each other when they do.
“You can’t have lulls, you can’t have passengers, especially in a three-game series. We’ve talked a lot about that, but the biggest thing I think is managing those ebbs and flows of a playoff game with your discipline and the way you play. It’s amazing in playoff hockey, even if you sit and watch the NHL games, how often somebody scores and the next team scores right away, or to start a period, somebody’s not quite ready and somebody scores right away.”
The Monsters have had success in recent seasons against the Marlies, winning 18 of the last 19 meetings. The two teams will stage a three-game opening-round series, with tonight’s game in Cleveland and Games 2 and 3 (if necessary) in Toronto on Saturday and Sunday.
If the Monsters advance, they will face North Division champion Laval – the AHL leader in points and coached by former CBJ head coach Pascal Vincent – in a five-game series. Cleveland will have to win five series to get all the way to its ultimate goal of the Calder Cup, but the fire of coming so close a year ago still burns.
“We had a really long run last year, and obviously we learned a lot,” Del Bel Belluz said. “We still have a lot of bodies that went through that run, so we’ll try to bring that into this year. Obviously we have a little bit of a different game plan – it's a different team – but we’ve played (Toronto) a bunch of times and we’ve had a pretty good record against them, so we feel confident. It should be fun.”
