Utica Comets vs Belleville Senators March 7, 2026 © Jana Chytilova/Freestyle Photography
The Belleville Senators got a much-needed offensive outburst cued by their newest member.
Graeme Clarke of Ottawa registered four points in his Sens debut as the team salvaged a win out of their fourth and final game of a series against Utica, 7-3, in front of a large and loud crowd of 3,862.
Belleville needed a fast start after three straight losses to the Comets and Carter Yakemchuk provided it with a bullet through traffic to pocket his ninth of his rookie campaign.
Utica got a response from Xavier Parent, who again burned the Sens for his fifth goal in the last three games against Belleville, scoring off a cross-ice rush feed from Brian Halonen.
The Sens fought to get the lead back on a backhand goal by Tyler Boucher out of a major scramble which touched off a wild scene which involved a huge scrum and a fight between Djibril Toure and Dmitry Osipov.
Boucher’s goal was his eighth of the year and second in as many nights.
The Sens then got a gift in a late period powerplay which was taken advantage of by Arthur Kaliyev.
The big Sens forward whipped a shot through the legs of Nico Daws to increase the lead to two and tie the single-season franchise goals mark with his 31st of the year.
Clarke drew his first of two helpers on the marker.
Olle Lycksell assisted on the first two Sens goals in the opening period before adding onto the Sens account in the second.
The Swedish forward accepted the faceoff win from Clarke and whistled a wrister out of the right faceoff circle past Daws on the blocker side.
Belleville kept that line surging and got another tally just 15 seconds later through a Clarke deflection off a shot from Yakemchuk on the right side of the blueline, triggering the hook of Daws for Jakub Malek, who started and won the last two games versus Belleville.
Utica cut Belleville’s momentum down a couple pegs with a pair of goals from Jonathen Gruden and Cam Squires to even the period score.
The visiting club continued the attack, but Sogaard stood tall in making some spectacular saves to preserve the two-goal bulge into the third.
The Sens gave their goaltender a reward by scoring twice more in the final session, both on hard net drives from Hayden Hodgson and Clarke (second of the game) about a minute apart.
Sogaard finished with 23 stops on the night, with Clarke and Lycksell pacing the Sens with four points each as Utica outshot Belleville 26-22.
The Sens improve to 22-28-8-0 on the season with 52 points on the season ahead of a key weekend pair in Hershey, starting Saturday at 7 p.m.
