Rochester is 0-2-1-0 against the Senators this season.
By CRAIG POTTER / C&C Worldwide Sports Director
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Rochester Americans 4-game winning came to a screeching halt Saturday night as the Belleville Senators skated off with a 5-2 victory before 7,088 fans at the Blue Cross Arena.
“It wasn’t one of our better games, but we still had some grade-A chances tonight,” said Amerks head coach Chris Taylor. “We didn’t seem to have it tonight as we were fumbling the puck and just could not get it by their goaltender to tie the game, especially in the third when he made six unbelievable saves.
“It’ll be a hard practice on Monday, I can tell you that. I’m really disappointed at what transpired here. It was just a bad game by our team.”
Some excellent goaltending by Belleville netminder Marcus Hogberg thwarted many scoring chances by the Amerks. For example, defenseman Matt Tennyson fired a shot on a 2-on-0 break, and was robbed by Hogberg sliding across to smother his shot off a pass from C.J. Smith.
“We had a lot of opportunities,” said defenseman Lawrence Pilut, who rejoined the Amerks after spending the last 3 months with the Buffalo Sabres. “We battled hard, but we had the puck bounces against us tonight.”
The Amerks opened the scoring with a shorthanded tally by Sean Malone when Hogberg got off a weak clear behind his net. Smith picked up the loose puck and fired it to Malone out front, who popped it into the vacated cage.
The Senators tied the game in the second stanza, but Andrew Oglevie put the Amerks back in front off assists from Zach Redmond and Alex Nylander.
“For some reason, we didn’t play as a complete unit,” Oglevie said. “Coach brought that up in-between periods and we need to play as one. At times we were a little disjointed and it came back to haunt us.”
“We had good first chances, but I don’t think we made it hard on their goaltender during the second and third chances,” Smith added. “We need to do a better job at getting to the net and make it harder for him to make those second and third saves.”
However, Belleville answered just 22 seconds later against Rochester keeper Adam Wilcox, and took the lead for good on a tipped shot from the point about 4 minutes later. The Senators tacked on 2 more goals in the third period.
Wilcox finished with 21 saves as Hogberg made 32 saves, many of the spectacular variety.
Smith sent back
The Buffalo Sabres assigned forward C.J. Smith to the Amerks on Saturday.
Asked if he were surprised by the move after just 20 days, Smith said, “Yes,” and declined to discuss it any further.
“I don’t really want to answer any of those questions. If you want to talk about the game, I’ll talk about the game, ” he said.
*NOTES — Rochester Americans General Manager Randy Sexton announced that goaltender Jonas Johansson has undergone successful surgery and will miss the remainder of the 2018-19 season. A third-round pick of the Buffalo Sabres in 2014, the 23-year-old second-year netminder posted a 4-1-0 record with a 2.26 goals-against average and a .926 save percentage in five appearances with the Amerks this season. The Gavle, Sweden, native also appeared in 27 contests for the Cincinnati Cyclones, where he went 18-5-2 with a 2.60 goals-against average, a .908 save percentage and three shutouts.
*More to come