Belleville Sens unable to stave off elimination fall 4-3 in overtime to Rochester
May 7, 2022
The Belleville Senators were unable to stave off elimination on Friday night, falling 4-3 in overtime to the Rochester Americans at CAA Arena as the Amerks swept the best-of-three series to advance to the North Division Semifinals against the Utica Comets.
After twenty minutes of play, Rochester took an early 1-0 lead through Arttu Ruotsalainen, who opened the scoring at 6:47 on the power play.
The Amerks extended their advantage 5:41 into the second period when Mark Jankowski capitalized on a friendly bounce. Later in the frame, the two sides would trade tallies as Belleville got on the board after Zac Leslie pounced on a rebound in the crease to bring the Senators to within a goal at 13:26. However, Rochester answered right back as Ruotsalainen netted his second of the contest to make it 3-1.
In the third, Belleville began to mount their comeback. Andrew Agozzino cut the lead to 3-2, firing home his first of the postseason off a Mark Kastelic faceoff win. Before rookie forward, Roby Jarventie tied the contest at 7:19 with a one-time blast on the man advantage to ultimately force extra time.
Brett Murray secured the victory with 2:22 left in overtime, scoring the game-winner with a snapshot from the low slot.
Sens On Special Teams
Power Play: 1/4| Penalty Kill: 3/4
Fast Facts
- Filip Gustavsson made 26 saves.
- Roby Jarventie scored his first career Calder Cup playoff goal.
- Andrew Agozzino led the team in playoff scoring with three points in two appearances.
- Ridly Greig had an assist in his Calder Cup playoff debut.
Sound Bytes
Head Coach Troy Mann:
“Both games were tight and went to overtime. As we know, the division is so close this year, and to me, there wasn’t a lot of a big difference at all between the top 6 teams. It went right down to the wire, and we could’ve easily won both of those games as well. They got the break in overtime on both nights, but I loved our resilience and our pushback, obviously trailing tonight 2-0 and 3-1. It was a fun crowd tonight, energized, and, unfortunately, we couldn’t pull it out to get it to Sunday because we would’ve had a lot, much better evening.”
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