The Belleville Senators were unable to stave off elimination on Friday night, falling 4-3 in overtime to the Rochester Americans at CAA Arena as the Amerks swept the best-of-three series to advance to the North Division Semifinals against the Utica Comets.
After twenty minutes of play, Rochester took an early 1-0 lead through Arttu Ruotsalainen, who opened the scoring at 6:47 on the power play.
The Amerks extended their advantage 5:41 into the second period when Mark Jankowski capitalized on a friendly bounce. Later in the frame, the two sides would trade tallies as Belleville got on the board after Zac Leslie pounced on a rebound in the crease to bring the Senators to within a goal at 13:26. However, Rochester answered right back as Ruotsalainen netted his second of the contest to make it 3-1.
In the third, Belleville began to mount their comeback. Andrew Agozzino cut the lead to 3-2, firing home his first of the postseason off a Mark Kastelic faceoff win, before rookie forward, Roby Jarventie tied the contest at 7:19 with a one-time blast on the man advantage to ultimately force extra time.
Brett Murray secured the victory with 2:22 left in overtime, scoring the game winner with a snapshot from the low slot.
Sens On Special Teams
Power Play: 1/4| Penalty Kill: 3/4
Fast Facts
- Filip Gustavsson made 26 saves.
- Roby Jarventie scored his first career AHL goal.
- Andrew Agozzino led the team in playoff scoring with three points in two appearances.
- Ridly Greig had an assist in his Calder Cup playoff debut.
Sound Bytes
Head Coach Troy Mann:
“Both games were tight and went to overtime. As we know, the division is so close this year, and to me, there wasn’t a lot of a big difference at all between the top six teams. It went right down to the wire, and we could’ve easily won both of those games as well. They got the break in overtime on both nights, but I loved our resilience and our pushback, obliviously trailing tonight 2-0 and 3-1. It was a fun crowd tonight, energized, and, unfortunately, we couldn’t pull it out to get it to Sunday because we would’ve had a lot, much better evening.”
Links
|Box Score | Highlights |
