The Belleville Senators kept the good times rolling Saturday as they beat the Laval Rocket for the second night in a row by a score of 7-3, also their fourth consecutive win.
It was Andrew Agozzino’s week as he became a father to a baby boy on Wednesday and followed up the good news with a big night at CAA Arena Saturday.
Just one minute into the game he opened the scoring with his fifth goal of the season, with assists going to Pontus Aberg and former Rocket Jake Lucchini, to go up 1-0 early.
The B-Sens fired off 14 shots on goal in the first period and were unable to capitalize on a four minute power play courtesy of a Danick Martel double minor for high sticking and the 1-0 lead persisted into the intermission.
It was the Rocket who struck first in the second period tying the game at one when winger Kevin Roy scored to knot it up.
Minutes later Agozzino struck again with his second goal of the night to retake the lead for Belleville 2-1.
Not long before the end of the period Egor Sokolov scored his fourth of the year to extend the lead and just before the period ended Laval’s Alex Belzile took a slashing penalty and had a fight with Belleville’s Mark Kastelic for good measure.
The Rocket opened the third frame down a man and followed that up with a pair of penalties inside the first three minutes of the period.
Following a Brandon Baddock tripping call, Lucchini capitalized against his former squad and scored his team-leading ninth goal of the season to put the B-Sens up 4-1.
Just past the halfway mark Laval attempted to claw back into the game when Laurent Dauphin scored to cut the lead in half.
With time winding down in the game and Belleville’s Clark Bishop serving a two minute cross checking penalty, the Rocket pulled goaltender Michael McNiven for a six-on-four advantage.
Having the extra man did not go according to the plan for the Rocket as Max Guenette scored shorthanded on the empty net to put Belleville up 5-2.
In what was an entertaining final few minutes of the game as Baddock scored for Laval to bring it back within reach with under two minutes to go only to be usurped 30 seconds later as Agozzino scored his third goal of the night on the empty net to complete the hat trick.
Before time expired Belleville’s Scott Sabourin twisted the knife with another goal putting the game well out of reach and right at the buzzer tempers flared as Laval’s Tory Dello and Belleville’s Matthew Wedman dropped the gloves.
All said and done, Agozzino had three goals and an assist, Lucchini had three assists and a goal and Kevin Mandolese stopped 35 of 38 shots faced to collect his third win of the season.
After the game, Agozzino spoke about what it meant to come back in a big way following the birth of his son.
“Just special. It was a crazy week to welcome my second child, my son, and then to come here, came back last night, and be able to help the team win in a big way. It’s just a great week and kind of a special way to cap it off, for sure.”
Head Coach Troy Mann had high praise for Agozzino.
“Real happy for him and I thought he was fantastic tonight. It was certainly his best game. I did like his game before we left knowing that he wouldn’t play Wednesday or Friday, but that’s the Agozzino that we signed and I thought his line was great tonight.”
With the win Belleville improves to 9-8-0 on the season and now sit in fifth place in the North Division.
The B-Sens will hit the road Wednesday to play against the 14-1-0 Utica Comets who handed Belleville a 4-1 loss when they last met on November 14.
The game begins at 7 p.m. with live coverage beginning on 800 CJBQ just before game time.
