Belleville Splits Weekend Series

It’s been an up and down start to the season for the Belleville Senators. The team opened the season with a weekend series split, recently completed a four-game home stand with a 2-1-1 record. Then, this past weekend they hit the road and — once again — split the weekend series.

The weekend started with a 6-3 loss (which looked far worse on paper than it was in reality). While the Springfield Thunderbirds found the back of the net six times, the final two occurred in the dying minutes with Belleville’s net empty. In reality, up until the final two minutes of the game, this was a one goal affair and Belleville was in it until that first empty-netter was scored.

The game started with Jiri Smejkal scoring his first professional goal in North America, giving him goals in five different professional hockey leagues around the globe. It was great to see the 6’4″ winger get on the gamesheet for the first time amidst rumours that he may be exploring a return to Europe after not making the Ottawa Senators out of camp. Fortunately for Senators fans, Elliotte Friedman poured cold water on this rumour just the other day.

Believe it is his desire to continue to pursue the NHL https://t.co/nsrxzbUHwA

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) November 6, 2023

Following Smejkal’s tally, things turned sour for Belleville as they allowed the Thunderbirds to score three unanswered to bury themselves in a hole. Egor Sokolov and Garrett Pilon were having none of it, as they scored two goals in the final five minutes of the second frame to even things up.

It took about half of the third period before Springfield was able to regain their lead on a power play marker from Nathan Walker, and that was all she wrote for Belleville’s comeback attempt.

Around The AHL

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• High Eagles Effort Stymied by Wallstedt
• Admirals’ Offense Struggles in Loss to Griffins
• Leafs Digest – 12/1 – MASSIVE Trade Incoming?
• The Success of the Cleveland Monsters

On Saturday, the Senators turned to Leevi Meriläinen in net. The Finnish netminder put together a tidy performance, helping his team to a 3-2 overtime victory on the back of his .931 SV%. Fans who tuned in on AHL TV may have thought they were watching a replay as Jacob Larsson was once again Belleville’s overtime hero, scoring his second OT winner of the season.

Jacob Larsson in OT is a given. @BellevilleSens | #BELvsWBS pic.twitter.com/G3ijhgjXKy

— American Hockey League (@TheAHL) November 5, 2023

In fact, Larsson has only scored twice this year for Belleville — both just happen to be overtime winners. Talk about clutch.

Overcoming Injuries

It’s an AHL story as old as time that when your NHL club experiences injuries, the trickle down takes immediately effect.

In Ottawa, it’s been confirmed that Artem Zub is nearing a return. Erik Brännström has been practicing regularly in a non-contact jersey, so we can assume the Swedish rearguard will be back in the lineup soon. As for Ridly Greig and Mark Kastelic, Ottawa Head Coach D.J. Smith confirmed both players will be out for a few more weeks, at minimum.

With the return of one blue liner (and another hopefully coming soon), this means Belleville will get to see the likes of Jacob Bernard-Docker and Tyler Kleven return to the lineup soon, bolstering the pretty thin group the team is currently icing. That being said, it’s likely the team will be without two of their forwards — currently Roby Järventie and Zack MacEwen — for the foreseeable future.

While Ottawa deals with its rash of injuries, it will be all the more important for Belleville to string together some wins. Once the team is back to full health, you can expect the wins to come more often than not. With depth up front and the goaltending tandem of Mads Søgaard and Meriläinen, there’s a chance this team can climb near the top of the North Division.

Belleville — and, maybe more importantly, Ottawa — just has to stay healthy.