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The Belleville Senators split a pair of games against Lehigh Valley and Toronto this weekend, maintaining their fourth place position in the North Division.

With just two games and a couple fresh faces on the roster, the Belleville Senators spent the weekend at CAA Arena hosting the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and Toronto Marlies.

On Friday night, with the Phantoms in town, the BSens secured their fourth win of the season with a nailbiting 3-2 win over Philadelphia’s farm team. The home team kicked off the festivities with a familiar goalscorer once again finding the back of the net. Rourke Chartier buried his fifth of the year on this sweet, sweet dish from Ridly Greig.

The next marker came in the second frame when, you guessed it, Chartier buried another one. Bringing him to six goals on the season, Chartier is now pacing 46 goals on the year. Totally sustainable, I know.

While the third period did see the Phantoms put two past Mads Søgaard, Maxence Guenette’s tally early in the final frame ensured the BSens could walk away with two points.

Saturday’s affair wasn’t quite as exciting for the fans at CAA Arena, as the Marlies came with a gameplan Belleville just couldn’t match. Nick Abruzzeze and former Senator Adam Gaudette got things started before Angus Crookshank was able to make a game of it with just 30 seconds left in the opening period. Crookshank’s third of the year, assisted by Egor Sokolov and Kristians Rubins, saw the AHL sophomore show off his hand eye coordination with a picture perfect deflection.

Unfortunately, Gaudette was able to regain Toronto’s two goal lead about halfway through the period and while Scott Sabourin found the back of the net shortly thereafter, it wouldn’t be enough for Belleville to stage the comeback. In true “playing your former team” fashion, Gaudette actually ended up completing the hat trick with a few minutes to go in the final period, securing Toronto’s 5-2 victory over Belleville.

In the week ahead, Belleville takes a quick trip to Syracuse on Friday before welcoming the Rochester Americans back to CAA Arena on Saturday. Facing off against two division rivals, these will be important points for Belleville as they look to bring themselves back above 0.500. In Syracuse, they’ll face a club struggling to string together some success as the Crunch are just 2-5-1 while Rochester sits ahead of Belleville with a 6-4-0 record.

Weekly Notes

Similar to the parent club in Ottawa, the BSens have been dealing with their own set of injuries. While each injured player may not match up to the level of importance to players like Josh Norris and Artem Zub, the sheer quantity has made things interesting nonetheless.

  • As noted, Chartier led the charge this week with a pair of goals, although he was held off the scoresheet against the Marlies on Saturday.
  • Last week, Belleville added Cole Cassels and Cory Conacher to the roster. Each new addition contributed an assist through two games this week.
  • Belleville had a new look top line this week with Jake Lucchini and Cory Conacher flanking top prospect Ridly Greig. In their two games together, the trio combined for four assists - two of which belonging to Greig during Belleville’s victory over Lehigh Valley.
  • On Greig, after a slow, injury riddled start to the season, he came alive this weekend as the gamechanging forward Ottawa expects him to be. His ice time and deployment from Head Coach Troy Mann indicated that he’s on track to being the player we saw in his previous AHL stint.
  • Mads Søgaard played both games this weekend and we saw a bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde performance from the Great Dane. On Friday, Søgaard stopped 37 of 39 shots for a crisp 0.949 SV% while on Saturday, he allowed four goals on 31 shots (0.871 SV%).
  • Egor Sokolov is quietly performing at a 0.9 points per game pace with nine points through ten games. Interestingly for the known goalscorer, only one of those nine points is a goal. Sokolov has been noticeably distributing the puck well, grabbing eight assists so far this season. Last season was the first time in Sokolov’s entire career, going back to junior, where his assists were greater than his goal totals. /

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