The Belleville Senators shut out the Hershey Bears 3-0 in their regular season opener game on Saturday night.
Cole Reinhardt, Nikolas Matinpalo, and Angus Crookshank scored for the Sens.
The Sens opened scoring midway through the first period with an unanswered goal, taking the lead against the Bears. Despite the Bears taking many more shots on net than the Sens, they couldn’t slip any past goalkeeper Mads Sogaard, who earned his first career shutout after closing the game with 30 total saves.
The second period saw the Senators take a second goal, extending their lead, before clinching a third and final point in the last frame on an empty Bears net.
Belleville Sens head coach Dave Bell was excited about the team’s performance.
“I like the fact of how quickly they’re coming together to support each other,” said Bell. “Systematically we weren’t great, but the encouragement I’m listening to on the bench of guys picking each other up and sticking together this quickly, that was pretty nice tonight.”
Goaltender Mads Sogaard was grateful to his team for helping him get his first shutout.
“I’ve played here for a couple years without getting one, so it was awesome to get it out of the way in the first game of the season,” said Sogaard. “I think it’s a big testament to how we played as a group and how well the guys in front of me played.”
The Senators travel to take on the Leigh Valley Phantoms this afternoon. The Puck drops at 1:05 p.m.
