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The first-ever matchup between the Lake Erie Monsters and the defending Calder Cup Champion Hamilton Bulldogs finished as a game to forget for Monsters fans as the Bulldogs scored six unanswered goals to post a 6-1 victory.

The first period started with a bang as the Monsters quickly found a way to net their only first period goal of the early season. Codey Burki not only came up scoring the first goal of the game, he netted a first of his own, scoring his first career AHL goal. “It feels pretty good. It would have been a little better feeling if it would have come in a winning game, but it’s nice to get it out of the way. It’s my second game now, and hopefully there is more to come.”

As the first period came to a close, the Bulldogs found a way to post a goal in the late moments. At the 18:50 mark of the period, right wing Sergei Kostitsyn netted his second goal of the season on the power play. Kostitsyn was assisted by center Cory Urquhart and left wing Eric Manlow.

As they did much of last season in their run to the Calder Cup, Hamilton found their mark with a consistent push on the offensive side of the ice. The Bulldogs offense set the tone for the remainder of the game as they scored back-to-back power play goals within five minutes of each other, at the 5:45 mark and the 10:29 mark, respectively. The first of the tallies came from right wing Duncan Milroy and was followed by right wing Jonathan Ferland. Both goals were assisted by Janne Lahti, who posted his first two-assist game of the season.

In an attempt to add to his team-leading three goals this season, Maxim Lapierre found the back of the net on a power play at the 11:36 mark of the third period. Lapierre’s marker was followed by the final goal of the contest by Jonathan Ferland, who notched his second of the game.

The Monsters seemingly had no answer to the power play abilities of the Bulldogs. “We came out the first period and I thought we played very well. We executed our game plan to a ‘T’ and then we took some penalties going into the end of the period and we lost our momentum and it just continued on in the second and third period. We were using the same guys in penalty killing and they got tired and got worn down. That’s not how we wanted to play this game, said” Monsters Head Coach Joe Sacco.

Monsters goalie Tyler Weiman finished the game with 34 saves on 40 shots. His counterpart Yann Danis stopped 28 of 29 shots en route to his first win of the season.

Three Stars
Janne Lahti (HAM)	Sergei Kostitsyn (HAM)	Yann Danis (HAM)
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"We've got to put what has happened behind us, there's no question about that.  We have to put everything behind us and stay positive, and we should be fine, we have a good team." - Monsters center Codey Burki | More game quotes