A frustrating night for the Belleville Senators on Saturday as they lost an opportunity to make up ground in the AHL’s North Division playoff picture.
The Springfield Thunderbirds flew in and beat the Sens on CAA Arena ice 5-3, led by dominant spans of play in the first half of the night.
Springfield’s aggressive penalty kill tilted the ice almost immediately with a pair of goals.
The Sens two early powerplays were interrupted by a nifty backhand off the rush from Aleksanteri Kaskimaki and a breakaway snipe from Dylan Peterson coming into the middle off the left wing.
Tyler Boucher tacked on his 10th of the season and second goal in as many games by jumping on a loose puck first along the end boards and coming around the net to whip a sharp backhand shot off T-Birds goalie Will Cranley and in.
Juraj Pekarcik received a fortunate break when a point shot caromed off a Belleville skate and went right to his stick for a conversion to re-establish the two-goal lead.
Belleville got a golden chance to draw closer again in the waning seconds of the opening frame, but Carter Yakemchuk couldn’t quite connect on a two-on-one with Xavier Bourgault.
The two teams traded markers within the first two minutes of play in the second, with Sam Bolduc launching a feed past Cranley through traffic to pull Belleville within one again, before the T-Birds squeaked one over the line on a four-on-two rush through Peterson.
Dillon Dube scored on a partial break against the run of play at the 5:42 mark of the middle frame to chase Sogaard from the net in favour of Friday night’s starter Leevi Merilainen.
The Finnish goaltender stabilized the game a bit for Belleville, but not quite enough to get the Sens another goal in the frame.
The Sens overwhelmed Springfield in third period shots 15-1 and managed to score late via Carter Yakemchuk on a give-and-go with Phil Daoust for his 10th of the year.
Bourgault added a secondary assist on the marker, which only got Belleville within two.
The Sens have now dropped three in a row and will move on to next weekend, when they’ll play a pair of games Friday and Saturday, both at 7 p.m. against the Manitoba Moose.
