A pair of goals from Jarid Lukosevicius wasn’t enough to help the Belleville Sens past the Bridgeport Islanders on Sunday afternoon, as they fell 4-2 at the Total Mortgage Arena.
Belleville had the upper hand in the first period, outshooting the Islanders 10-8, but couldn’t beat Ken Appleby and Bridgeport turned on their offence in the second. Ruslan Ishakov started the scoring by tucking a rebound past Leevi Merilainen, at 3:38, before Travis Mitchell scored his first career AHL goal a little over four minutes later. Lukosevicius got a friendly bounce on a long wrist shot from the blue line for his first of the night at 12:29 of the second, but Kyle MacLean would get his first before the end of the frame, to make it 3-1.
Maclean would get his second of the night early in the third and then Lukosevicius would snap a wrist shot past Ken Appleby late in the game, for his second of the night, to round out the scoring.
The Senators continue their road trip with a game Wednesday night in Utica.
Fast Facts:
- #7 Jarid Lukosevicius scored his first two goals of the season
- #11 Kyle Betts had two assists for his first two points of the season
- #19 Matthew Boucher had two assists
- #35 Leevin Merilainen made 37 saves on 41 shots
- Belleville was 0/1 on the power play and 2/3 on the penalty kill
Sound Bytes:
Belleville Sens Head Coach Dave Bell on the key factors in tonight‘s loss:
“The discipline we talk about all the time. We had an outstanding start to the game and then decided to go rogue, and changed from the game plan. We got fancy and cute and then we were behind.”
Belleville Sens Head Coach Dave Bell on moving forward this week:
“I think as a staff we’ve got to reevaluate things, the players have to reevaluate their game on what they’re doing well and need to improve on. Then we’ll practice on Tuesday and begin to improve on it.”
