Senators suffer frustrating loss to Cleveland

It was a frustrating night for the Belleville Senators at CAA Arena on Friday, as they dropped a 4-2 decision to the Cleveland Monsters.

The Sens came out of the gate flat and Cleveland capitalized, with former Belleville Bulls (OHL) captain Brendan Gaunce opening the scoring at 3:33 of the first period. The Monsters would follow that up with goals by Kent Johnson (his first in the AHL) in the first period and Stanislav Svozil on the power play, in the second. Cleveland led 3-0 and outshot Belleville 21-12 through two periods.

The Monsters would tack on one more goal, courtesy of  a Johnson wrist shot past Mads Sogaard, at 4:11 of the third, but the Sens would score twice late to cut the lead in half. Cole Reinhardt drove the net and got a friendly bounce past Jet Greaves to score his second of the season at 15:41 on the power play, then Josh Currie buried a loose puck at 18:48, for his first as a Senator.

Fast Facts

• #4 Jacob Larsson played in his 200th AHL game
• #9 Angus Crookshank played in his 100th AHL game
• #18 Josh Currie recorded his first goal as a Senator and added an assist
• Belleville outshot Cleveland 17-5 in the third period and 29-26 overall

Sound Bytes:

Senators forward Josh Currie on the loss and upcoming Sunday rematch:

“We’ve just got to execute better. I think we were just making small mental mistakes, things that we can easily clean up. We’ve just got to make sure that we bend and don’t break, and I think a couple times today we broke down and gave in a little too much.”

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