After starting their 2008-09 season mostly on the road, the Binghamton Senators played through one of the most difficult stretches in their schedule, with seven games in 10 nights.

On Halloween night, the B-Sens came off a week of rest to fall to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, 4-2. Bridgeport opened up a 2-0 lead in the first period by out-shooting Binghamton, 15-5, but the B-Sens tied it up with goals from Zack Smith and Ryan Shannon during the second period. A late pair of power play goals from Bridgeport was the deciding factor in their victory.

“When you start every game down, it’s hard to win,” Shannon said. He continued saying that the team needs to match their opponents’ intensity and control the flow of the game at the beginning. “During the second period we were able to tie the game up because everyone was talking on the bench and supporting each other,” he said.

The following night Binghamton suffered a 6-5 loss to Bridgeport in one of the most controversial games of the season.

The B-Sens found themselves down two goals again after the first period and were trailing 5-2 going into the third. However, a late comeback with a pair of goals from Ilya Zubov and a goal from Shannon evened the game up at five. The effort to tie the game lasted less than four minutes.

“Sometimes you get lucky and I’m happy that I was able to contribute to this comeback,” Zubov said.

But with 10 seconds remaining in the game, Bridgeport defenseman Jack Hillen shot a puck that went through the right pad of B-Sens goaltender Jeff Glass, and then skirted along the goal line. The red light went on behind the net, signaling a goal even though the puck never fully crossed the goal line.

The refs then conferred to discuss the ruling and confirmed that the play was indeed a goal, to the displeasure of the home fans.

Glass said he felt the puck hit his right pad, but didn’t make an effort to retrieve it because he thought it was covered up.

“It’s too bad the game had to end with a call like this,” he said.

On Nov. 7, the B-Sens beat the Syracuse Crunch, 4-1, in front of a sellout crowd of 4,710 fans at the Broome County Arena.

Shannon and Brendan Bell each scored goals to extend their point-scoring streaks to seven games in a night that was heavily affected by special teams. Binghamton was able to stop Syracuse on eight out of nine penalty kills, and scored two power play goals

The last game in their home stand was against the Worcester Sharks on Nov. 8, in which Binghamton won 5-4.

Binghamton once again dominated on the power play with four goals, and Bell and Shannon extended their point-scoring streaks to eight games.

The B-Sens were able to jump out to a 5-0 lead, but the Sharks battled back, falling one goal short of a tie game. Brian Elliott stopped 48 out of 52 shots on the night, with 40 of those shots coming during the last two periods of play.

After the game concluded, the team traveled to Canada to play a set of games against Bridgeport in non-AHL markets.

Their first stop in Prince Edward Island resulted in a 4-3 shootout win. Bell scored a late goal to tie the game in the third period, and contributed again with another goal in the shootout. The B-Sens power play continued to excel with a three for six performance, and Bell extended his point-scoring streak to 11 games.

The second game was in St. Johns, Newfoundland, but had a different finish. The B-Sens fell to Bridgeport, 6-2, after giving up four unanswered goals during the last two periods of play.

On Nov. 14, the B-Sens returned home to play the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, a game which resulted in a 4-2 victory. It was Denis Hamel’s first game back from a knee injury, and he helped put the team over the top when he and Danny Bois scored two goals in 23 seconds during the third period.

The next two games the B-Sens played resulted in shutout losses, with one of them being the worst in franchise history.

On Saturday night the B-Sens fell to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, 3-0, in the second game of the home series. But on Sunday, another road game played in Hershey resulted in a 9-0 loss. Even though the scoreboard showed a lopsided defeat, this was the third night in a row the team was playing hockey, and the fifth time in six days.

The B-Sens also had a number of roster adjustments over the past few weeks. Wingers Moises Gutierrez and Pierre Luc-Faubert were both signed to 25-game tryout contracts, but neither made the team. Zubov and Shannon were called up to Ottawa last week, and Bell was called up on Sunday.