On the farm: B-Sens roll on

After a tough four-game losing streak to end October/start November, the B-Sens got back to their winning ways with victories over Syracuse (Nov. 7, 4-1) and Worcester (Nov. 8, 5-4).

Recently-acquired defenceman Drew Fata proved his mettle in his first game for Bingo, scoring a goal and taking nine minutes in penalties including a fight against the Crunch's Craig MacDonald. If history serves, don't count on many more goals from Fata, but look forward to a lot more fights, and even more penalty minutes. I'll let Binghamton blogger/beat writer Michael Sharp give you a game recap:

"They avoided that first-period hole, re-established themselves on the penalty kill, kept those first-line guys ([Zack] Smith, [Ryan] Shannon, [Ilya] Zubov) rolling, struck quickly in the second after Syracuse rallied to tie the game (Zubov and Fata scored 48 seconds apart), and then they kept pushing in the third, with Brendan Bell getting that all-important insurance goal on the power play."

That line of Smith-Shannon-Zubov combined for four points (2G, 2A) and are in the top-four in team scoring.

For the win against Worcester, it was a different story. The B-Sens got out to a 5-0 win on four power-play goals, and then let the Sharks back into it, and almost blew the lead. Again, here's Sharp's post-game synopsis, from his blog:

"Overall, Binghamton owned a 5-0 lead and a 15-13 advantage in shots at that 4:23 mark of the second. From there, though, Worcester outscored the B-Sens 4-0 and outshot them 39-7."

So... yeah, holy shit, 39 shots in less than two periods for the Sharks. Worcester outshot Binghamton 52-21 overall, so goaltender Brian Elliott has to get a lot of the credit for the win. Zubov had a goal and two assists, Shannon had three assists, and defencemen Brendan Bell and Mattias Karlsson each had a goal and an assist.

The B-Sens are fourth in the East Division, and fifth in the Eastern Conference. Zubov is 11th in league scoring with 14 points (7G, 7A) and Elliott is eighth in save percentage and tied for 13th in GAA. Here's the B-Sens top-five scorers:

1. Zubov: 14P (7G, 7A)
   
2. Shannon: 14P (5G, 9A)
   
3. Bell: 11P (4G, 7A)
   
4. Smith: 10P (8G, 2A)
   
5. Karlsson: 8P (1G, 7A)