What a run the Monsters are on right now! After Wednesday’s win at home against Texas they are a franchise-best six games over the .500 mark and tied with the Manitoba Moose for first place in the North Division with 64 points.

This week’s “Calls Of The Week” will take us back the last three games, all of which were wins for the Monsters.

Let’s start with an exciting shootout win for Lake Erie on Saturday February 12th at The Q, when the Monsters hosted North Division rival Grand Rapids. The Monsters got off to a sluggish start in the game, as it was their first game in five days. But in the second period they started to play much better and they tied the game when Patrick Rissmiller found a puck on the side of the crease and beat Griffins goaltender Jordan Pearce. Here’s how the called sounded from Ben Holden on FS Ohio and ESPN 850 WKNR.

That goal proved to be huge because it was the only goal the Monsters scored in regulation and in overtime. The game went to a six-round shootout and in round six, Monsters head coach David Quinn called on the AHL’s leader in shorthanded goals, Mike Carman, to try and give the Monsters the lead in the top of the sixth round. Here’s the call of Carman’s shootout attempt, and it’s followed by the call of Jason Bacashihua’s game winning shootout save courtesy of Ben Holden and Monsters TV Analyst Sean Ritchlin.

The Monsters got the two points against the Griffins with the exciting 2-1 shootout win and were off until Monday when they welcomed the Texas Stars to The Q for a Valentine’s Day contest. The Monsters opened the scoring when David Van der Gulik knocked in a rebound to give the Monsters an early lead. Here’s how the called sounded on AM 1220.

Goaltender Jason Bacashihua had a great three-game stretch, playing against Grand Rapids and in both games against Texas. In this third-period clip, “Cash” came up money with a big stop on the Stars.

Late in the third period the Monsters got a rare power play opportunity against the Stars, who are the least penalized team in the AHL, and Ryan Stoa scored his 16th of the season and the 39th of his Lake Erie career to make the score 3-1. Here’s how that eventual game-winner sounded.

On Wednesday morning, before more than 7,000 local school kids, the Monsters met the Stars again for a school day game at The Q. The Monsters came out sharp and on time for class as they got an early goal from Matt Ford to make it 1-0. Here’s how that goal sounded on the Monsters Hockey Network and AM 1540 KNR2.

That was the first of three points on the day for Matt Ford, who had a superb all around game against the Stars. Later in the game, during a power play in the second period, David Van der Gulik found the back of the net, beating Brent Krahn to give the Monsters a 2-0 lead.

With the score 2-1 early in the third period, Kevin Montgomery took a pass from Mike Carman and fired a low shot towards the Stars net where Ford tipped in his second goal of the game. Here’s the call of that eventual game winner.

Roughly six minutes later, Joel Chouniard scored his fifth goal of the season on a great set up by Ryan Stoa to make it a 4-1 Monsters lead. Here’s the call of that goal.

Jason Bacashihua was stellar in the game as well, and late in the third period he made a pair of dazzling saves in the Monsters net. Here’s the sequence with “Cash” going side-to-side in the crease.

The Stars did get a goal later to make it 4-2 but the Monsters played solid defense the rest of the way, and after Bacashihua attempted to score into the open Stars net, but just missed wide to the left, there was one more faceoff in the Lake Erie zone before the game ended in a 4-2 win or the Monsters. Here’s the final call of the game as heard on KNR2 from Ben Holden.

It was quite a run the Monsters had at home with a stretch of 12 of 13 games at The Q, as Lake Erie won eight of the 12 games.

That’s it for this week’s “Calls Of The Week”, we hope you enjoyed it. Both games this weekend at Manitoba can be heard on ESPN 850 WKNR beginning Friday and Saturday nights at 8:25 EST with Ben Holden and the pregame show featuring head coach David Quinn.

Go Monsters!!