The Belleville Senators were not able to overcome a slow start and a strong opposition power play on Saturday night, falling 6-2 to the Rochester Americans at CAA Arena.
Lassi Thomson and Cole Reinhardt scored for the Senators as the pair of sophomores continued their strong play this season. On the other end of the docket, Rochester was led by Jack Quinn and JJ Peterka, who both found the back of the night twice for the Amerks. Mitch Eliot and Jimmy Schuldt also tallied, while Aaron Dell made 30 saves in the win.
After Rochester quickly jumped out to an earlier 4-0 lead, Belleville got one back through defenceman Lassi Thomson who hammered a slap shot into an empty cage at 4:17 of the second period after Aaron Dell came sliding out of his net.
“You can talk about discipline and officiating, but at the end of the day, we talked to our guys about specific ways to beat Rochester,” said head coach Troy Mann after the game. “You can’t give them odd-man rushes, their power play is one of the best in the league and we certainly witnessed why tonight. To me, the odd man rushes early in the game resulted in goals and they scored four on the power play. That was really the game.”
The Amerks would tack on two more before the end of the stanza to take a 6-1 lead into the final frame.
Belleville pulled within four in the third period after Cole Reinhardt scored his 12th of the season with 13:51 left to play. However, that was as close as the Senators would come on the night.
“My message post-game was that it’s an emotional time of year and a fun time of year, but we’ve got to decompress, take the day and come back at it Monday,” Mann said. “We got four-of-six points this week, so we won the week and probably won’t fall too far, based on Toronto losing.”
The Senators were zero for three on the power play and four for seven on the penalty kill against Rochester.
Michael McNiven made 12 saves in relief and Viktor Lodin made his Belleville Senators and AHL debut during the game.
The Belleville Sens continue to sit in fourth place in the American Hockey League’s North Division.
Belleville is back in action on Monday when they host the Laval Rocket. Game time is 7:05 p.m. 800 CJBQ will have all the action beginning at 6:50 p.m.
