Logan Brown and Drake Batherson scored for the B-Sens but, Belleville failed to capitalize on two late power plays, which would have made the difference.
Toronto jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period with Jeremy Bracco continuing his hot season.
He finished off a passing play from Chris Mueller and Calle Rosen on the power play just 1:41 into the game, for his 12th goal and 43rd point of the season.
Then at 7:09 a bad Belleville change turned into a two-on-one rush, with Dmytro Timashov feeding a pass to Tom Sestito, who beat Marcus Hogberg and made it 2-0 in his Marlies debut.
Belleville cut the lead in half in the second when Brown broke in on the left wing side and snuck a short side wrist shot over the shoulder of Michael Hutchinson.
Both goaltenders made massive saves in the second as well.
First Hogberg made a sprawling pad save on Colin Greening, who came flying out of the penalty box on a breakaway, then Hutchinson answerd with a glove save moments later, robbing Jack Rodewald on a two-on-one.
The B-Sens got even less than 2:00 into the third as Batherson lifted a rebound over Hutchinson, following an Eric Burgdoerfer point shot.
Belleville had a 5:00 power play late in the game, after Sestito hit Adam Tambellini from behind forcing him to leave the game, but couldn’t score.
They also couldn’t score on a minor penalty man advantage in the extra frame.
In the shootout Rudolfs Balcers missed his first shot for Belleville and Bracco got stopped as well.
Then Batherson and Mason Marchment each scored with backhanders in round two.
In round three, Brown got stopped trying to beat Hutchinson with a shot, before former Senator Gabriel Gagne out-deked Hogberg to end the game.
Coach Troy Mann says the result was a bit frustrating.
He adds that his team may have been overthinking things a bit during the long, late-game power play, but credited the Toronto penalty killers as well.
The B-Sens head into the all star break seven points back of the Marlies for the last playoff spot in the North Division and have 30 games left to play when their schedule resumes on February 2 in Binghamton.
Mann says he wants his team to enjoy their break and re-focus for the tough stretch ahead.
The Lexus American Hockey League All Star Challenge presented by MGM Springfield takes place in Springfield, Massachusetts with the skills competition on Sunday and the all star tournament on Monday.
You can click here to read the box score from Saturday, with highlights and the full post game interview from Coach Mann below.
Troy Mann Post Game Scrum:
