The Manitoba Moose (5-6-0-0) tangled with the Belleville Senators (6-6-0-1) on Friday evening for the first of a six-game road swing. Manitoba was coming off a 5-2 defeat against Laval on Monday.
Neither side found the back of the net through the opening 20 minutes of play. Thomas Milic, who was making his second straight start in net for Manitoba, made eight saves in the first period. On the Belleville side, Kevin Mandolese snared every Moose chance he faced and finished the stanza with 11 stops of his own.
Manitoba opened the scoring on the power play at the 7:13 mark of the middle stanza. Kyle Capobianco settled the puck at the point and found Nikita Chibrikov, who wired a hard shot past Mandolese from the top of the circle. The power play tally was the lone scoring play of the second period. Manitoba was ahead 1-0 after 40 minutes of play and outshot Belleville by a count of 14-7 in the frame.
The Moose added some insurance before the third period was five-minutes old. With Manitoba on the power play, Declan Chisholm sent the disc to Wyatt Bongiovanni. The winger skated down from the dot and rifled a shot over the shoulder of Mandolese for his second goal in as many games. The Moose pushed further ahead shortly after, as C.J. Suess netted his second of the campaign by beating Mandolese through traffic. Belleville got on the board late with a power play goal courtesy of Jiri Smejkal, as he beat Milic up high. Belleville continued to press and opted to pull Mandolese in favour of the extra attacker. The gambit paid off, as Smejkal found twine again to pull the Senators within a goal. The Moose held firm from there and were able to keep Belleville from drawing even. Milic notched the win, his first AHL victory, on the back of 26 stops, while Mandolese was hit with the loss and ended with 31 saves of his own.
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