Søgaard Stands Tall in Belleville Sweep

With the Ottawa Senators on their All-Star Break, Mads Søgaard was returned to the AHL to help right the ship for the Belleville Senators last weekend. Coming off a six game losing streak – which followed ten of Belleville’s best games of the season – the streaky Senators were hopeful that their Danish netminder would provide the stability they needed to get back on track.

In the AHL, the majority of games are played within the division so you can say that almost every game is an “important two points” but, facing the second place Crunch, in their building, the pressure was on for Belleville to shake off the bad and bring on the good.

With their starting goaltender back between the pipes, this looked more like the team that won seven of ten games just a few weeks back. While defensive breakdowns still existed, getting bailed out early by Søgaard helped instill confidence in David Bell’s group to stick to their game and get on the attack. On Friday night, it took about 25 minutes of gameplay to get there but Angus Crookshank finally broke the game open with his 14th of the year. Less than a minute later, Lassi Thomson added to Belleville’s lead for just his second goal since Boxing Day. Stopping all but one of the shots he faced, Søgaard was poised and comfortable with his .963 SV%.

On Saturday, the Crunch came out flying, opening the scoring just over three minutes into the game. It was clear based on the pace of play that the Syracuse staff sent a message before the two teams hit the ice that Friday night’s loss was not to be repeated. Fortunately for Senators fans, this Belleville team bent but didn’t buckle, and the two teams headed into the first intermission knotted at two. Jiri Smejkal would be a key player, putting up his third two goal game of the season and adding an assist for good measure. But it was one of Belleville’s All-Stars that would end this one in overtime.