The Belleville Senators took an exciting weekend road series with the Cleveland Monsters 3-2 in a shootout Saturday night.
Coming off Friday’s big 6-2 win over the Monsters, the B-Sens went into Saturday’s game hoping to sweep the two-game set.
Belleville was down 12 players for the evening between injuries and players called up to the big club in Ottawa, which left call-ups from the ECHL’s Atlanta Gladiators filling in the gaps.
The first period proved a defensive battle as neither team was able to crack the score sheet.
The B-Sens managed 10 shots on goal to Cleveland’s eight and the Senators had a power play opportunity off an Adam Helewka cross-checking penalty but the score remained knotted at zero heading into the intermission.
It would be former Belleville Senator Cole Cassels who opened the scoring for Cleveland eight minutes into the second frame when he was able to solve B-Sens goalie Kevin Mandolese for his first goal of the year.
Not to be outdone, Roby Jarventie netted his second of the year just five minutes later to knot the game up once again.
The teams swapped power play opportunities in the second with neither able to capitalize and the 1-1 score persisted into the second intermission.
Five minutes into the third frame Mark Kastelic stole the lead for Belleville when he scored his third goal of the year on the power play following a Carson Meyer holding penalty to take the lead.
The B-Sens clung to the lead for much of the period weathering three penalty kills and having two chances of their own with the man up.
It wasn’t until the waning minutes of the period that rookie defenceman Jacob Bernard-Docker took a tripping penalty which tacked on top of a Belleville too many men penalty which gave former Belleville Bull Brendan Gaunce the opportunity to knot the game up on the power play.
With the game tied at two at the end of regulation, the contest headed to an overtime period.
The extra period was an uneventful one with both teams managing just two shots on goal.
In the shootout that ensue, the Monsters rolled out Gaunce for the first shot and he missed, setting up Jake Lucchini to play hero.
Lucchini made no mistake as he scored and his goal eventually held up as the winner as neither of Cleveland’s remaining two shooters were able to score and Belleville took home a 3-2 shootout win.
Kevin Mandolese made 27 saves on 29 shots for the game as well as three saves in the shootout to secure his second win of the season and Belleville improved to 4-6-0-0 on the year.
After the game Mandolese said he wasn’t feeling the pressure despite the tight game.
“Well, you know, I was just having fun out there. I was just smiling the whole way. I think, especially with the start of the season we’ve had, it can be easy to get down on ourselves, so, I was just having fun out there tonight and it was fun to get the win, boys played unreal.”
Leading the way on the score sheet for the B-Sens was Jarventie who notched a goal and an assist, bringing his point total to six points through nine games on the year.
With his assist, Lucchini extended his team lead in points to 11 with six goals and five assists this season.
The Senators will close out this five game road trip on Wednesday when they travel to Laval to take on the Rocket, before a three game home spell.
Wednesday’s game begins at 7:30 and you can catch live coverage on CJBQ.
