The Belleville Senators squeaked out a narrow win over the Canadian Division winning Laval Rocket Friday night.
Belleville has struggled mightily against Laval this season going just 2-8 against the Rocket heading into Friday’s game.
Laval jumped out to an early first period lead when Rocket winger Jake Lucchini put one past Sens goaltender Mads Sogaard in the first seven minutes of the game.
Belleville would respond less than a minute later with Colby Williams scoring to even the game at one apiece. In the last minute of the frame Egor Sokolov scored his team leading 14th goal of the season on the power play to give the Senators a 2-1 edge heading in to the first intermission.
The B-Sens came out strong in the second period and continued to pour it on with goals from J.C Beaudin and Logan Brown to widen the gap leaving the score at 4-1 heading into the third.
In the third period Laval made a strong push firing 12 shots to go along with two power play chances. Lucchini scored his second of the game to bring the score to 4-2 inside the first five minutes of the period and Terrence Amorosa scored with just over five minutes left to make it 4-3.
In the end the B-Sens did enough to stave off the comeback and took home the win.
Belleville goaltender Mads Sogaard continues to impress since arriving from Denmark notching another win to move to 3-o on the season. He stopped 26 of 29 shots Friday including a big stop on a breakaway in the second period.
In a season during which seven different goaltenders have seen time in the crease for Belleville, Sogaard has provided some much needed consistency down the stretch.
Belleville Head Coach Troy Mann had praise for his team’s performance and Sogaard’s big stop.
“Really had no problems with our game tonight. I thought after 40 minutes we were well in control of the game. Sogaard made a huge save on the breakaway.”
The win continues Belleville’s hot streak towards the end of the season now having won three in a row. Though there will be no AHL playoffs this season, the B-Sens still have six games remaining on the schedule with a four game mini-series against the Manitoba Moose and then closing the season on back-to-back games against the Toronto Marlies.
Belleville hits the ice again Tuesday against the Manitoba Moose in Ottawa at 7 p.m.
