The Belleville Senators put a bow on their seven game western swing with a 4-1 win over the Stockton Heat in Calgary Saturday.
The B-Sens jumped out to a first period lead on a power play marker by Jonathan Aspirot with assists by Parker Kelly and newcomer Angus Crookshank, who has been on fire since joining the team mid-season with 10 points in eight games.
Just before the midway point of the second period the Flames evened up the game, but under one minute later Belleville retook the lead when J.C Beaudin notched his second goal of the season. Colby Williams added a goal late in the second to widen the gap and Crookshank notched his second assist of the game on the goal.
Stockton made a strong push in the third period due in no small part to four consecutive Belleville penalties leading to eight minutes on the man advantage for the Heat, but couldn’t find a way to solve netminder Filip Gustavsson who enjoyed a 28 save performance on the night.
With under three minutes left in the game, Belleville forward Joseph LaBate sealed the deal with an empty net goal for a 4-1 B-Sens win.
Defence was the theme of the game as the Senators were badly out-shot 29 to 14.
Aspirot, who opened the scoring for Belleville, says they aren’t worried by the large margin in shots.
“No, some teams like to shoot a lot of pucks. It’s not our system to shoot everything on net so it’s kind of normal sometimes to get out-shot like this. Gus (Gustavsson) and Mando (Kevin Mandolese) are playing really well so sometimes shots from the outside doesn’t mean it’s going to go in. We’ve got to bear down and just play our system.”
B-Sens Head Coach Troy Mann echoed Aspirot in saying that the number of shots doesn’t concern him and that it’s the quality of the chances.
“I’ll be honest with you. I never look at the shots total quite frankly. I’m purely scoring chances for and against. I think that, at least for the two periods, we were out-chancing them. But in the third period obviously, with the four penalties, we had to kill eight minutes off. They certainly had some opportunities and certainly controlled the play a little bit more in the third.”
Despite giving up six power plays in the game the Belleville Senators remained perfect on the penalty kill.
The win helped the B-Sens finish the eight game road trip, seven of which were played out west, with a 5-3 record. They now sit tied for last in the AHL’s Canadian division with the same Stockton Heat with a record of 10-14-1. Belleville has heated up lately, with six wins in their last 10 games, at a good time with 13 games left on the schedule.
The B-Sens return home to Ottawa to play the Toronto Marlies on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
