The monstrous road trip that began for the Lake Erie Monsters on February 7th in Grand Rapids will come to an end after Lake Erie plays back-to-back games this weekend in Rockford on Friday and Grand Rapids on Saturday. When the team returns to Cleveland in the wee hours of Sunday morning, they will have played nine games in 15 days, visited six states, one province and traveled more than 3,500 miles.

The Monsters play their second and final game in the state of Illinois on Friday at the Rockford Metro Centre where they'll take on the Rockford Ice Hogs for the first of two meetings this season. The game is number eight of the nine-game swing for the Monsters that began on February 7th against the Grand Rapids Griffins.

Although players from Rockford and Lake Erie will be facing-off against each other on Friday, there was a time when Rockford forward Pascal Pelletier joined with Monsters Chris Durno and Matt Hendricks as teammates. Durno and Pelletier were teammates from 2004-06 with Gwinnett of the ECHL while Pelletier and Hendricks played together last year with the Providence Bruins of the AHL.

Rockford will come to Quicken Loans Arena for the final meeting between the two teams this season on April 1st. The game is the third-to-last contest on home ice for the Monsters in the regular season. Last year the Monsters were 2-0-1-1 against their West Division foes.

The trip comes full circle on Saturday, when the team ends the swing where it began – at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Monsters hope to end the trip the same way it started – with a convincing win over one of the Western Conference’s best teams. Back on February 7th, the Monsters downed the Griffins, 4-1, on four unanswered goals from T.J. Galiardi, Chris Durno, Phil Dupuis and Matt Hendricks. So far this season, the Monsters are 2-2-0-1 against the Griffins. After Saturday, the next game between the Griffins and the Monsters is scheduled for February 28th at The Q.

The Monsters will return to play on home ice for the first time in 19 days on Wednesday, February 25th, when Lake Erie takes on the Syracuse Crunch at 7:00 p.m. at The Q.