Hello again Monsters fans and welcome to this week’s action packed and exciting edition of “Calls Of The Week”. The Monsters played two one-goal games over the weekend, both of which were against the Rockford IceHogs at The Q. In fact, they were the final home games the Monsters will play until March 22nd when they host the Rochester Americans in what will be a key North Division battle.

Let’s get the “Calls Of The Week” started with a trip back to Friday’s game against Rockford. Early in the game, Monsters winger Patrick Bordeleau was trying to lay a body check on Rockford captain Garnet Exelby at center ice in front of the official scorer’s table, but Exelby was able to avoid most of Bordeleau’s intended contact. Here’s how the call of that incident sounded with play-by-play man Ben Holden on ESPN 850.

The clean up from the shattered glass took 10-15 minutes. Those who were in the scoring area did suffer some minor cuts, but they were all doing fine shortly after the glass shattered. Not long after that, Bordeleau dropped the gloves with Rockford’s Brandon Bollig. Here’s how the call of that tilt sounded.

The Monsters trailed 1-0 after 20 minutes but came out strong in the second period and tied the game at 1-1 when winger Matt Ford found the back of the Rockford net for his 19th goal of the season. Julian Talbot, who had two assists in the game, and Mark Olver helped set up the play. Here’s how the call of that goal sounded.

With Rockford up 2-1 in the third period, rookie Mark Olver continued his red hot goal scoring when he netted his AHL rookie best 23rd of the season. It came on the power play at 4:13 of the period with the assists going to Joel Chouinard and Ben Walter. Here’s how Holden described the game-tying goal for the Monsters.

That goal would eventually force overtime before 11,631 at The Q and it didn’t take the Monsters long to end the game once the five-minute overtime session started. Rockford had two men in the penalty box, so instead of 4-on-4 hockey like normal in overtime, the Monsters had a 5-on-3 power play and Matt Ford got his second of the night and his 20th of the season just 11 seconds into the extra session. Here’s how the call of the overtime winner sounded.

So the Monsters picked up the well-earned bonus point for the overtime win and maintained their top spot in the North Division after the win on Friday. The same two teams got together 24 hours later at The Q, and like Friday, the Ice Hogs scored first on the Monsters. They had a 2-0 lead in the second period before Justin Mercier did some great work up the left wing and then crashed the net to get the Monsters on the board. Here’s how Ben Holden described that goal on ESPN 850.

The goal was the 10th of the season for Mercier. Just a few minutes later in the second period, the Monsters evened the score at 2-2 when David van der Gulik knocked in his 10th of the season from the top of the crease. Here’s how the game-tying goal sounded.

In the third period, with the game still tied at 2-2, the IceHogs took the lead back on a goal by Evan Brophy on a rush into the Monsters zone. Here’s how the call of that goal sounded courtesy of Ben Holden.

Later in the third period the Monsters had numerous chances down at Rockford’s end of the ice. The best of them came from Julian Talbot in the late stages of the period, but he was denied the game-tying goal. Here’s how Talbot’s chance sounded.

With 4.8 seconds left in the game, the Monsters had an offensive zone face off to the right of the Rockford net. The Monsters won the face off and newly-acquired defenseman Shawn Belle nearly tied the game at the buzzer which would have forced overtime for a second straight night. Here’s how the final call of the game sounded.

The Monsters came up short Saturday falling 3-2 and it was their first home loss since February 5th when they lost in a shootout to the San Antonio Rampage. The Monsters are still right in the thick of the North Division playoff race and will skate in Hamilton Friday, March 11th, at 7:00 p.m., before a 3:00 p.m. game in Toronto on Saturday, March 12th. Both games can be heard on AM 1220 with the voice of the Monsters, Ben Holden. Head Coach David Quinn will join Holden for the pregame show before every Monsters radio broadcast. Friday’s broadcast will begin at 6:55 p.m., while Saturday’s will begin at 2:55 p.m.

Next week in our “Calls Of The Week”, we will have highlights from both games. Until then, Go Monsters!!