The Belleville Senators’ slow start to the American Hockey League’s shortened season continues, after a 3-1 loss to the Manitoba Moose (Winnipeg Jets) in Ottawa on Friday night.
Cole Maier had a pair of goals for Manitoba and CJ Suess added a single, while Mikael Berdin turned away 21 shots.
Cody Goloubef had the only goal for Belleville and Filip Gustavsson stopped 24 of 27 shots in his second straight start, to take the loss.
Manitoba opened the scoring inside the first 3:00 on a quick power play goal, following an interference penalty by Belleville’s Lassi Thomson.
Moose rookie Cole Perfetti won the offensive zone faceoff back to Ville Heinola and his point shot was tipped home by Suess.
The B-Sens were outshot 7-0 through the first 5:00 of the game, spurring veteran defenceman Hubert Labrie to try to turn the momentum a bit, as he squared off in a fight with Jimmy Oligny.
Belleville’s best chance to tie it came midway through the period, when Joseph LaBate picked off a pass at the Manitoba blue line and fed a pass across to Parker Kelly, but the second-year Senator got stopped by Berdin.
The Russian netminder would have to make another handful of saves later in the period, including a couple on a Belleville power play as the B-Sens found their legs, but couldn’t score.
The shots after the first period were 16-8 Manitoba.
Belleville Senators defenceman
It was a much more competitive start to the second period, but neither team had a great chance until just past the 10:00 mark.
Belleville’s Egor Sokolov pounced on a turnover and crashed the Moose net, looking for his second goal in as many games, but couldn’t lift the puck over a sprawling Berdin.
Manitoba made it 2-0 a few moments later when Cole Meijer won a battle in the corner, walked out in front of the Belleville net and tucked a backhand past Gustavsson.
Belleville would cut the lead to 2-1 before the end of the period when Goloubef’s long shot took a bounce off a body in front and eluded the Manitoba goaltender.
There wasn’t much action in the third period, with the two teams combining for just eight shots.
One of those was Maier’s second goal of the night, an empty netter, to put the game out of reach.
After failing to score first in every game this season, Senators Head Coach Troy Mann says a pattern of slow starts seems to be developing.
“We’re chasing the game again and obviously we don’t have that offensive ability to come back as last year’s team. I thought we got better. I thought we definitely out-chanced them the rest of the game. Unfortunately we couldn’t get that 2-2 goal, because I thought we really came on and were moving our feet. Specifically when I made some line changes there.”
Mann says even though he kept the same lineup from Wednesday night he’ll likely be making some adjustments when the teams meet again on Saturday afternoon, at 3:00 p.m.
“We started with the same lines from the Stockton game because at the end of the day we generated 22 chances, had five posts I believe, and did our part in terms of generating, but unfortunately the puck didn’t go in. Tonight I just felt a couple of the lines were pretty flat.”
You’ll be able to hear the game on 800 AM CJBQ, via TSN 1200 in Ottawa or tune in through an AHL TV subscription.
Following that, Belleville will start a three-game series in Ottawa with the Laval Rocket (Montreal Canadiens), before taking on the Toronto Marlies (Toronto Maple Leafs) for three games.
You can click here to see the box score from Friday night.
