The Belleville Senators will head into the AHL All-Star break on the back of a 4-2 victory over the Utica Comets Saturday night at CAA Arena.
Joey Daccord made 30 saves for Belleville as Drake Batherson, Morgan Klimchuk, Rudolfs Balcers and Filip Chlapik had goals. Michael DiPietro turned away 27 shots as Justin Bailey and Ashton Sautner scored for the Comets.
Batherson opened the scoring at 11:48 on a one-timer off of Logan Brown’s pass on a 5-on-3 advantage as his 14th of the year gave the Sens a 1-0 lead.
The Belleville lead was doubled at 11:43 of the second and it came from another Klimchuk short-handed goal. After scoring a shorty last night, Klimchuk caught a Formenton pass and beat DiPietro low blocker for his 10th of the season.
Bailey got the Comets on the board with 6.4 seconds left as he buried the puck into an empty net after Brogan Rafferty had hit the post.
Balcers restored Belleville’s two-goal lead at 6:05 of the third on the power play as he wired home Filip Chlapik’s feed for his 10th of the year and 50th AHL goal. Chlapik made it 4-1 at 11:57 from the low faceoff circle hash marks as he scored from a very tight angle of DiPietro’s right shoulder for his fifth of the season.
Sautner cut the Belleville lead to 4-2 on his first goal of the season at 17:25 as he beat Daccord five-hole from the left slot.