Moose Finally Lose in OT, Fall to Belleville

It had to happen eventually. After winning the first six extra time games they played this season, the Manitoba Moose finally dropped one in overtime. Saturday night in Belleville, the Moose built a 3-0 lead, couldn't hold it and fell 5-4 in overtime to the Belleville Senators. With the OT loss, the Moose fell to 24-32-1-0 while Belleville improved to 35-16-4-1. It was the first time in seven extra-time games this season that the Moose had failed to score the winning goal. At the 2:57 mark of the first period, Kristian Reichel ripped a shot through traffic that eluded Belleville net minder Filip Gustavsson and game the Moose the 1-0 lead. Just two minutes later, Ryan White capitalized on Logan Stanley's rebound to make it 2-0. With 4:20 gone in the second period, Logan Stanley fired a writer past Gustavsson to make it score 3-0, but the Senators roared back. Darren Archibald and Parker Kelly scored before the end of the second period and then Jordan Schwarz scored at 6:20 of the third to tie it. At 11:43 of the third, Reichel scored his second of the game to give the Moose a 4-3 lead but with just 34 seconds remaining in regulation time Rudolfs Balcers tied it up. Belleville completed the comeback at 2:01 of overtime when Alex Formenton banged his own rebound past Moose goalie Mikhail Berlin. Despite the loss, there were some good signs for the Moose. Kristian Reichel posted the first multi-goal game of his AHL career; C.J Suess marked a new AHL career high with three assists; and with a goal and an assist Logan Stanley posted his second multi-point game of the season. The Moose play again on Saturday, Feb. 29 at 2 p.m. at Bell MTS Place when Brett Lernout, Jermaine Loewen, Keegan Kolesar, Cody Glass and the Chicago Wolves come to town.