Cleveland Monsters Notebook: Greaves’ Big Night, Dumais’ Good Start & More

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Like their parent club the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Cleveland Monsters are in a playoff chase of their own. They were staring down a pair of games against one of the best teams in the AHL in the Texas Stars.

The Monsters were able to get a point on Friday night when they eventually fell in a shootout 5-4. Saturday’s game was Jet Greaves’ Bobblehead night which drew a huge crowd of 14,604. They had to uncover the upper bowl at Rocket Arena.

Despite the great turnout, it was the Stars who prevailed on Saturday night. They scored twice in the span of 1:42 in the second period and went on to a 3-1 win over the Monsters.

Greaves was named the third star of the night stopping 27 of 29 shots. He did everything possible to give his team a chance to win.

Greaves’ Big Night

Although Greaves didn’t get the win, the fans came out to celebrate one of the more popular players on the team. The Monsters shared on their social channels throughout the day the reactions to his “Jet in a Jet Bobblehead.”

It was clear everyone loved the design.

Greaves has an infectious attitude and smile. He’s beloved in the locker room for the way he carries himself. Postgame Saturday, he spoke on the night. He doesn’t take any of it for granted.

“I’m so grateful,” Greaves said. “I’m so grateful to God for just giving me this experience that I’ve had in Cleveland. It’s been so special, and the fans here are so amazing. And just the support since my first game played here has been unbelievable. And tonight was just a really special night. All the fan support and a lot of my family was able to come in for the game. So I’m just so grateful for all that. It’s really special. I don’t take it for granted at all.”

For the season, Greaves is in the top-6 in save percentage in the AHL with a .918. His performance has been paramount to the Monsters being in the playoff picture.

The Monsters are in fourth place in the AHL’s North Division. The top-5 teams qualify for the playoffs.

The Monsters hold a four-point lead over the Belleville Senators and a three-point lead over the fifth-place Syracuse Crunch. The Senators are the first team out in the division. Both the Senators (1) and Crunch (2) have games in hand.

The only thing Saturday night was missing for Greaves was a win. Other than that, it was a great night of honoring one of the most beloved players on the Monsters.

Dumais’ Good Start

The day Jordan Dumais was waiting for finally came. On Dec 28, the Blue Jackets activated Dumais off the injured/non-roster list and assigned him to the Monsters.

Between rehabbing a tough injury and some legal trouble, Dumais could finally start the process of getting back into the swing of hockey. He is off to a good start with the Monsters.

Dumais has four goals and 10 points in his first 18 games with the Monsters. What makes this even more impressive is that he’s still adjusting to and learning the league and is putting up respectable numbers after being away from the game for a lengthy amount of time.

We caught up for a couple minutes with Dumais on Saturday night postgame. He says he feels good.

“It’s good. I feel good,” Dumais said. “It took maybe a bit to get back into it. I was off for such a long time but I think I feel good now. It was a really long year with a lot of ups and downs. But at the end of the day, I’m just grinding through it and now it’s behind me. I’m just looking to play my game and contribute to this team.”

Jordan Dumais Columbus Blue Jackets
Jordan Dumais says he feels good but knows he has a lot of work in front of him. (Amy Irvin / The Hockey Writers)

Dumais admitted that his injury was complicated when asked what threshold was needed in order to return.

“There was a lot going on health wise. There wasn’t much I could say. It was just (cleared) by the doctors here so it took a long time.”

Dumais is excited to get the chance to play and look forward after everything he’s been through. But he says there’s still a lot of work to do.

“I’m not sure if I’m 100% there yet,” Dumais said. “But I’m grateful I could just play. The more I play, the more comfortable I feel. I’m just trying to get used to this league. I think I’m doing a good job of that. I’m just trying to help my team win.”

“I think offensively, everything is going well. I have a couple of things defensively I have to work on and it’s always been like that throughout my whole career to get ready for the next level even after this. I played with a lot of these guys and I got a lot of chemistry with these guys. I’m just trying to fit in. It’s not the easiest when you come in middle of the year but I think it’s going pretty well right now.”

Dumais knows he has a lot to prove. His mindset is focused on improving away from the puck and earning most trust with the coaching staff.

“I think defensively. I have some things to work on there. But I think just gaining the trust of my coach so I could get put in those situations and be put in those situations where I can make an impact.”

Dumais remains one of the most intriguing Blue Jackets’ prospects. The process is underway for him to show that he’ll be an impactful player in the NHL someday.

Vogelhuber Concerned

Despite the Monsters being in the playoffs and playing a tough Texas team hard, coach Trent Vogelhuber was not happy postgame on Saturday. He liked the start. But then the second period came along.

“I thought it was a real immature second period,” Vogelhuber said. “I thought the game plan was real good in the first. I liked a lot of things about it. Probably could have been up by more than one. And then the second, I thought we went off script and started trying guys one-on-one and changing on the backcheck all of a sudden instead of setting the next line up. A lot of it seemed like it felt like it was gonna be their night because we had a good first period and abandoned what worked and so it was pretty frustrating to watch.”

Vogelhuber admitted having these issues now is a concern.

“Oh yeah, that’s a concern. We’d probably played four out of five real good games leading up to this one. And a chance to close it off the right way and gotta sit on this for a week so it’s pretty ugly. It’s a playoff game for us and that’s all we’ve been talking about for the past week. I didn’t think there was enough desperation. I didn’t think there was enough push. It didn’t look like it was a playoff game for us by any means.”

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Vogelhuber then went out of his way to say that the new guys Dumais and Luca Pinelli were not part of the problem he described. Pinelli had two assists in his Monsters’ debut on Friday. Dumais and Pinelli are playing on a line together with Hunter McKown in the top-6.

Up next for the Monsters, they continue their homestand with a pair against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Friday and Saturday night. Just eight games remain in the regular season as they hope to cross the finish line in the push to the Calder Cup Playoffs.