After 338 days the Belleville Senators finally began their fourth American Hockey League season on Friday, falling 5-1 to the Laval Rocket in Montreal.
Logan Shaw scored for the B-Sens in his debut, after splitting last season between the Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose, while Joey Daccord made 31 saves on 36 shots.
Joseph Blandisi paced the Laval attack with a pair of goals and Cayden Primeau stopped 22 of 23 attempts.
It was the first of four games for the B-Sens against Laval over the next week as they got the pandemic-shortened season underway, playing at the Bell Centre, the home of the Rocket’s NHL parent club, the Montreal Canadiens.
In sticking with the opening night trend over Belleville’s first three seasons, the B-Sens gave up the first goal of the game, at just about the 8:00 mark.
Laval won a faceoff in the Belleville zone and worked the puck below the goal line, where Joel Teasdale carried it around back of the net and fed a pass to Xavier Ouellet at the point.
The Rocket captain’s long wrist shot took a couple of bounces on the way to the goal and was initially blocked by Daccord, but trickled underneath him and across the goal line.
That would be the only goal of the first period with Laval outshooting Belleville 12-6.
Belleville would cut the lead to 2-1 inside the first minute of the second period, courtesy of Logan Shaw, who was making his B-Sens debut after splitting last season between the Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose.
The Glace Bay, Nova Scotia native put some aggressive pressure on Oulette to force a turnover along the near side boards and cut straight to the net.
He tucked his first of the season between the legs of Primeau.
Laval would retake the lead at 7:14 and then go up 3-1 about 2:00 after that, courtesy of Blandisi’s pair.
First, he beat Daccord with a wrist shot from the slot, then he slapped in a rebound from a Cale Fleury point shot.
The B-Sens would put on 10 more shots, to Laval’s 17 but couldn’t beat Primeau.
In the third, Laval struck less than a minute in when Lukas Vejdomo sprawled towards a Michael Pezzetta rebound and knocked it by Daccord to make it 4-1.
Incoming Belleville defenceman Lassi Thomson had an excellent chance to make it 4-2 in the mid stages, when he sped through the middle, took a short pass from Logan Brown and deked his way in for a shot on goal, only to be turned aside by Primeau.
Then at 11:41, Joel Teasdale rounded out the scoring when he buried his first pro goal for Laval, carrying the puck into the Belleville zone, bouncing off a defender and putting a wrist shot past Daccord to round out the scoring.
Belleville Senators forward Logan Shaw celebrates his goal against the Laval Rocket, at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec on February 12, 2021. (Photo: Courtesy / Laval Rocket)
B-Sens Coach Troy Mann says he wasn’t surprised his team showed some rust, given most of them hadn’t played in almost a year
“You could tell there was a number of players that hadn’t played hockey in a while. I think I counted four guys that had played some type of meaningful games in the last 11 months. As I said to the guys, it’s a pass from the coaching perspective. If this was 30 games in and you get a performance like this, with some of the things we did tonight, you wouldn’t be very happy from a coaching perspective.”
Shaw tells Quinte News he didn’t think fatigue was as much of a factor, feeling his team needed to take better care of the puck.
“That’s basically what it just comes down to, we turned the puck over too much at our blue line, at their blue line. We just didn’t play a hard enough game I don’t think. It was too easy to play against us. We’re not too worried about the shot total, we try to get quality chances over quantity chances, but we know what we have to do tomorrow.”
It’s a quick turn around for both teams as they meet again Saturday afternoon at the Bell Centre at 1:00 p.m., before battling again twice next week.
Between those games The B-Sens will head back to their home base in Ottawa, where they’ll practice and play home games for the time being due to COVID-19 protocols that have to meet strict standards.
Despite Ontario Government approval for both the B-Sens and Toronto Marlies to play in the province this season, it remains to be seen if or when AHL games will be played in the friendly city due to COVID-19 protocols.
Kevin Mandolese is expected to start in net for Belleville, with Mann planning a handful of lineup changes as well in order to get more players some ice time.
