The Belleville Senators could not halt a third-period charge from the Hartford Wolf Pack as they fell 5-2 at CAA Arena on Saturday night. Belleville opened the scoring through defenceman Jonathan Aspirot at the 10:45 mark of the first period. Hartford forward Matt Lorito, however, tied the contest on a one-time blast with 24 seconds to play in the frame.
Early in the second, Cole Reinhardt found the back of the net as he beat Keith Kinkaid with a backhander to give the Senators a 2-1 lead at 3:10. The back-and-forth tallying continued throughout the stanza as a seeing-eye shot from Tanner Fritz found its way through to even the score at 2-2 after forty minutes of play.
The Wolf Pack paced their win, scoring three times in the third. Mike O’Leary started the offensive attack, converting on a goalmouth scramble to make it 3-2 before Patrick Khodorenko notched a shorthanded marker. Anthony Greco secured the Hartford victory finding an empty cage with 54 seconds to play.
Head Coach Troy Mann:
“I didn’t like our third period. I just thought our puck management overall wasn’t great tonight. We had some opportunities, as did they. I thought a lot of the goals that they scored were self-inflicted in terms of us just not making the plays, when you get scored in the last minute of a period when you give up a shorty, that usually doesn’t bode well for winning hockey games. I certainly didn’t think we had enough guys tonight with that playoff mentality, but we went into the third period with an opportunity to win the hockey game. Unfortunately, we probably deserved to lose the game.”
With tonight’s loss, the Senators fall from fourth to sixth place in a tight North Division.
The Belleville Senators are back in action Sunday night when they visit the Syracuse Crunch. You can hear the game on the Senators’ Official Broadcast Partner 800 AM CJBQ. Coverage begins at 6:50 p.m. ET with David Foot.
