Cleveland Monsters goaltender Matiss Kivlenieks has been recalled by the Columbus Blue Jackets. Veini Vehvilainen will remain as Cleveland’s primary goalie.
The Cleveland Monsters will be down a goalie when they face the Utica Comets this weekend. The Blue Jackets have recalled Matiss Kivlenieks to come back up to Columbus. Kivlenieks has made one career start in the NHL, a win against the New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden. Kivlenieks allowed one goal 32 shots in a 2-1 win for the Blue Jackets.
The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline believes that this could be due to the recovery timetable for Joonas Korpisalo.
Columbus needs two goalies and Korpisalo is not an option at the moment. The Blue Jackets will now have the combination of Elvis Merzlikins and Matiss Kivlenieks.
Kivlenieks has been excellent during his time with the Monsters. Appearing in 18 games and allowing 2.91 goals per game on average. This comes on a save percentage of .903, barely behind Veini Vehvilainen’s save percentage of .907.
Cleveland now has two goaltenders on their roster. Veini Vehvilainen and Brad Thiessen. Vehvilainen and Kivlenieks are the only goalies to appear in a significant number of games this season. Brad Thiessen has apperad in three and Elvis Merzlikins has appeared in two. Predictably, Merzlikins has the best goals against average of the four (1.52). Thiessen has allowed fewer goals per game than Kivlenieks (2.60), but his save percentage is significantly lower (.887).
Mike Eaves could opt to go with Veini Vehvilainen for one game with Brad Thiessen in the other. Vehvilainen struggled against Utica earlier this season, allowing five goals in 40 minutes. This game was also a second game of a back-to-back, although it took place at 7:00 P.M. rather than 1:00 P.M. Splitting the two starts between Vehvilainen and Thiessen should be given serious though given the quick turnaround between games.
