Story by Matt Tidcombe.
The Syracuse Crunch beat the Belleville Senators 5-2 Friday night in the penultimate match-up of the season between the two North Division rivals.
Erik Burgdoerfer scored twice for Belleville while Marcus Hogberg made 31 saves. Syracuse had goals from Anthony Cirelli, Jonne Tammela, Olivier Archambault, Ben Thomas and Mitchell Stephens while Connor Ingram turned aside 22 shots.
It took just 1:56 for the Crunch to open the scoring as Cirelli notched his eighth on the year as he redirected Mathieu Joseph’s shot past Hogberg before Tammela’s third of the year at 15:28 doubled the Syracuse lead as he let a wicked wrister go from the slot to make it 2-0 before the end of the first.
Archambault made it 3-0 1:09 into the second before the Senators finally found the scoreboard in the third through Burgdoerfer who navigated his way through the Crunch defence to score his second power play goal of the season and fourth goal of the campaign 52 seconds in the frame.
The Crunch would restore its three-goal lead at 4:03 through Thomas’ third of the year but Burgdoerfer would again strike back as he let one go from the blue line that flew past the traffic and past Ingram at 2:01 later.
Stephens completed the scoring with an empty-netter at 17:02.
Hogberg collected an assist on Burgdoerfer’s first goal of the evening becoming just the second Sens goalie to register a point after Danny Taylor. Jamie Doornbosch assisted on the second Belleville goal, notching his first point as a Senator.
Belleville is back in action tonight as they host the Rochester Americans on Bell Let’s Talk Night as the team will continue to raise awareness for mental health ahead of Bell Let’s Talk Day on Jan. 31. Tickets are available by clicking here.
Broadcast time on CJBQ with Jack Miller is 6:50.
