After their worst loss of the season on home ice last weekend, an 8-1 rout by the Hershey Bears, the Binghamton Senators were poised for redemption during a Saturday night rematch.
Although the Binghamton Senators played a much closer game to Hershey, they were still not able to overcome the defending Calder Cup champions, losing by a score of 3-2 in overtime.
“At times we had to weather the storm and I thought we did a good job then,” said Don Nachbaur, head coach of Binghamton. “As far as effort goes I can’t complain about the effort the guys put in [tonight].”
Hershey opened the scoring at 4:23 into the first period with a slap-shot goal by winger Alexandre Giroux that went by Binghamton goaltender Andy Chiodo, who was being screened in front of the net.
Minutes later, the B-Sens evened the score after Josh Hennessy put a wrist shot over the glove of Hershey goaltender Michal Neuvirth.
Binghamton took the 2-1 lead midway into the second period after Cody Bass put a wrist shot past Neuvirth following a pass from team captain Denis Hamel.
Chiodo, who was pulled after two periods after letting in six goals against Hershey the last time the two teams matched up, played a strong game highlighted by several difficult saves.
He managed to keep the B-Sens in the game during the second period, in which Hershey pressured enough to gather 27 shots in the 20-minute frame — a Binghamton franchise record for shots allowed by an opponent during a period. Chiodo made 41 saves on the night.
“When our team started to flounder, he was there for us,” Nachbaur said.
Binghamton escaped the second period by only letting in one goal — a shot by Hershey defenseman John Carlson, which went past the sprawling Chiodo after making a flurry of saves.
“I think things went our way because we were confident and I thought we deserved some breaks,” Chiodo said. “I know everybody in that [locker] room wanted to win the game tonight and that’s why we battled so hard in the second period.”
In a reversal of fortune, the B-Sens managed to outshoot the Bears 15-4 in the third period, but could not stop the game from going into overtime.
One minute into the extra frame, Giroux struck once again, sliding a wrist shot underneath Chiodo to seal Hershey a 3-2 victory.
Chiodo, although disappointed with the result, saw progress in the team’s efforts.
“It’s early in the season right now and we’re going to get better as a team, but tonight was a good point for us,” he said. “We got killed last week and tonight we escaped with a point.”
The night before, the visiting Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins beat Binghamton by a score of 6-3.
The Penguins were able to gain a lead 43 seconds into the first period after winger Chris Conner scored a breakaway goal.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton then extended the lead in the first to 3-0 with a pair of power play goals nearly a minute apart from each other.
Binghamton mounted a comeback with two goals by forward Ryan Keller, but the Penguins continued to score, finishing off the B-Sens, 5-2, before adding an empty-net goal.
The B-Sens return to action on Wednesday on the road against Rochester and on Friday in Syracuse. Both games start at 7:05 p.m.