Trent Vogelhuber knows what it’s like to win it all in Cleveland.
Eight years ago, he was a 27-year-old forward on a Lake Erie Monsters team that found the right mix in the postseason, combining some of the Blue Jackets’ top prospects with experienced veterans like Vogelhuber.
That team romped through the Calder Cup playoffs, winning 15 of 17 games and sweeping the conference final and league final to deliver a championship to the lakefront.
Things have changed a little bit – the team is now known as the Cleveland Monsters, and instead of playing, Vogelhuber is the team’s head coach – but his hope is the end result is the same. And as someone who has the experience of lifting the trophy, he knows what it takes to get there over the next two months.
“The only thing I remember from that year I played is those two months of playoffs,” Vogelhuber said. “I don’t remember a whole lot from the regular season. These are the moments you can make with people you really care about, and ultimately your goal is to get those people to bond together and move up a level together. I’m super excited to see how they respond and just ready to get started.”
Cleveland enters the AHL playoffs feeling like it has a chance to do some damage as the champions of the league’s North Division. The Monsters finished atop the division with a 40-24-5-3 record, ending with a flourish the weekend of April 19-21 by sweeping division rivals Rochester and Toronto on the road in three games over a three-day span.
The Monsters entered the weekend needing a win or two to avoid having to play a first-round, 4 vs. 5 series; by the end, the six points they earned moved them to the top of the standings. Toronto and Belleville ended up in the best-of-three first-round series, with the B-Sens advancing to take on Cleveland in the North Division semifinals.
Through a quirk in scheduling, the Senators will host the first two games starting Wednesday, with Cleveland’s home playoff games – Games 3, 4 and 5 of the best-of-five series – tentatively scheduled for May 8, 10 and 12 at Rocket Mortage FieldHouse.
Cleveland goes into those games with the momentum built by finishing the season on such a high note – and earning the franchise’s first-ever division title.
“It was an awesome weekend overall to get three wins like that and be able to take the division,” Vogelhuber said. “That’s what we had to do is get all three, especially in regulation, so it just says a lot about our group. It was the first time we’ve had a lot of the guys in Columbus come back and join us, and they picked up right where they left off with some revitalized confidence. I was super proud of them to be able to come through.
“A division is hard to win. It’s hard to win in any league. It’s a special accomplishment that they worked hard for all year. It was a six-month grind to be able to come out on top of the division. I was so happy for them.”
It helped that Cleveland finally had a full roster, as a myriad of injuries at the NHL level led to the Blue Jackets having to call up a horde of players late in the season just to fill out a lineup. Those personnel losses led in part to a seven-game losing skid for Cleveland as the calendar flipped to April.
Once Columbus ended its season April 16, the squad sent six players – forwards Luca Del Bel Belluz, James Malatesta and Mikael Pyyhtia; defensemen Nick Blankenburg and David Jiricek; and netminder Jet Greaves – back to the Monsters for the final weekend.
Vogelhuber said the experience those players gained at the NHL level will help them as the AHL postseason kicks into gear.
“I think it just does a ton for those guys’ confidence coming back into this league knowing they can play in that league, and now they come back and are playing super meaningful, important games with that revitalized confidence,” he said. “I think you can see, we’ve been a .500 hockey team for a bit just with what we were going through, and we come back with those guys joining us and we win three in a row in almost 48 hours. It did a ton for our team’s confidence.”
Perhaps the most encouraging thing for Vogelhuber is that Cleveland got contributions from up and down the lineup to finish the campaign. Mr. Monster himself Trey Fix-Wolansky – the franchise’s all-time leading scorer and a second-team AHL All-Star along with defenseman Jake Christiansen – had two goals in the final win over Toronto, while Greaves won all three games over the weekend to set the franchise record with 61 career victories.
But Cleveland also saw heroics from the likes of rookie defenseman Stanislav Svozil, who scored the tying goal in the third period and the overtime goal to beat Rochester on Friday night, and fourth-liner Justin Pearson, who had a hat trick in the Saturday win over Toronto.
That depth is one reason why Vogelhuber thinks Cleveland can put together a memorable run.
“I think it’s important nobody is looking at somebody else to get the job done, and also very important that nobody cares who gets the job done,” Vogelhuber said. “As long as we end up with that win at the end of the night, everybody is happy; it doesn’t matter who gets rewarded or who gets on the score sheet. I think that’s what you saw this (last) weekend is everybody pulling the rope the same direction. That’s what happens. Everybody contributes in their own way.”
While Cleveland occupied a playoff spot for most of the season, it wasn’t the easiest campaign. The team has a good mix of AHL veterans and young CBJ prospects, but after a hot start, the team began to get every team’s best shot as the season went on. That led to some adversity the squad had to get through during the winter, then there was the tough late-season run as the Blue Jackets had many of the team’s top players, but each time the Monsters were able to battle through and right the ship.
The end result is Vogelhuber sees a team that has learned through adversity and now gets to reap the reward of playing at the end of the season.
“The goal isn’t to make the playoffs; that’s the expectation,” he said. “The expectation is to go into each night expecting to win, and I think that breeds a little bit of confidence. You have to prepare properly in order to get that confidence, but I think we’ve done that, and just having that mind-set that we’re here to win and anything less is quite frankly unacceptable here.
“I think the guys have grabbed ahold of that, and now they get the opportunity to play the one time of the season that matters. That’s April, May, June. I’m super excited to see how some of the young guys respond and enjoy it, but it’s so much fun.”
One other thing Cleveland will have on its side is the fan support of the Monsters faithful. This season, the team’s average attendance of 10,347 didn’t just lead the league; it was the highest average in the AHL in the past 25 years.
Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse was rocking with sellout crowds when Cleveland won it all eight years ago, and Vogelhuber is looking forward to having that advantage on his side yet again this postseason.
“Having away teams having to come in and play in front of 10,000-plus people that are into the game and loud just makes it more difficult,” Vogelhuber said. “You have to take advantage of that. We’re so fortunate to be in a big major league city and have these people care about hockey and sports the way they do. I’m happy those fans are going to be able to experience playoff hockey just like our guys.”
