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Game Recap

Trio of shorthanded goals sink Senators in 5-2 loss at Lehigh Valley

October 15, 2023

Despite jumping out to a very early lead, the Belleville Senators got a bit of a scare on Sunday afternoon, losing their second game of the new season to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

Belleville got on the board first and fast. Egor Sokolov bounced his first of the season in, from a tough angle at 3:34, before Garrett Pilon finished off a nice play with Boko Imama and Cole Reinhardt about 12 seconds later. It was Pilon’s first goal as a Senator and Imama’s first point in a Belleville uniform.

The lead would only last a couple minutes, with Lehigh Valley rattling off three goals before the 10:30 mark, from Alexis Gendron, Cooper Marody (shorthanded), and Tanner Lacynski (power play). The only scoring in the second also came on a Phantoms power play, with Adam Ginning scoring 1:14 into the frame, chasing Kevin Mandolese from the Belleville net.

The only scoring in the third would come via another shorthanded Phantoms goal, this one into an empty net, from Rhett Gardiner.

Fast Facts:

  • Boko Imama and Matt Highmore each had an assist to record their first Belleville Sens point
  • Egor Sokolov and Garrett Pilon each scored their first goal of the season, Pilon’s first goal as a Senator
  • Belleville went 1/5 on the power play and killed off 5/6 penalties against
  • Mads Sogaard stopped 22/22 shots against, entering the game in relief of Kevin Mandolese early in the second period
  • Jiri Smejkal led the Senators with five shots on goal 

Sound Bytes:

Belleville Sens Head Coach Dave Bell on today’s loss:

“We got outworked on the power play, obviously that’s the story of the game when you give up three shorthanded goals. It doesn’t matter the personnel, if you get outworked, those are momentum killers and game changers. We had them 2-0, a bad break happens and you live with that, but then you have a chance to go up 3-1 and they tie it 2-2, and that’s the hockey game.”

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Ticket Info:

Tickets for all Belleville Sens home games through January 20, 2024, are now on sale online via the Belleville Sens Ticket Hub, or by emailing tickets@bellevillesens.com. Tickets for the second half of the season will be available for purchase beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Monday November 20, 2023, with information on hours for the Belleville Sens Box Office at the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre, to be released later.

Fans looking to buy second half tickets can secure those seats now, by purchasing season seat membershipsflex packsgroup experiences or Business Elite memberships

The full 2023-24 Belleville Senators regular season schedule can be found by clicking here.