BELLEVILLE, ON - Goals are goals, regardless of how they enter the net. The Belleville Bulls were on the receiving end of that lesson on Wednesday night at the Yardmen Arena as the Kingston Frontenacs came away with two points despite three scrambly goals.

The 3-1 loss saw the Bulls take the ice after beating the Frontenacs 8-1 back on December 2nd. Unlike their last encounter however, the Fronts were playing with a sense of urgency after losing to the Brampton Battalion on Sunday.

It became clear early that the Frontenacs, despite being without their most talented offensive force, weren't about to hand the Bulls an easy two points. Without Ryan Spooner, Kingston played a responsible first period of hockey, limiting their turnovers and not allowing the big Belleville offence to create opportunities when they dominated the boards.

Inside the opening two minutes of the period, Malcolm Subban was called upon to make his first big saves of the night. With a continual game of ping-pong between the Kingston point men, the Bulls were unable to wrestle control away from their opponents. The Fronts were eventually able to benefit from a scrambly play in the goalmouth as Subban came up with a pair of stops but Spencer Green was on the doorstep to get his stick on a third effort at 1:25 to make the score 1-0 Kingston.

Belleville countered just over three minutes later as Brendan Gaunce used some incredible hand-eye coordination to beat big Russian goaltender Igor Bobkov. Gaunce hit a homerun in the slot, batting an airbourne feed from Austen Brassard through the legs of the netminder for his 19th marker of the year. 

The two squads played lockdown hockey for much of the night following the early scoring. A predominately north and south affair featured very few whistles and a lot of shots from the perimeter off the rush as neither offence was able to penetrate high scoring areas.

With no goals in the second period, the Bulls outshot Kingston 10-4 after being on the losing end of the shooting tally 14-7 in the first.

After Bulls Academic Advisor Peggy Burris awarded Michael Curtis with the November Academic Player of the Month Award, the two teams got down to business in the third period faced with a 1-1 tie.

Finally seeming to take the bull by the horns, Belleville seized control of the game early in the third as they outshot the Frontenacs 8-0 through the opening five minutes. Kingston managed to weather the onslaught though as Bobkov provided some big saves to keep the score tied.

The Bulls weren't able to capitalize on a charging penalty to Nathan Cull in the moments to follow as the Thunder Bay native took a run at Bulls defenceman Jake Worrad inside the Belleville zone. Worrad left the ice shaken up but returned soon after.

The Frontenacs held off the Bulls long enough to catch a bounce at 9:02. Alex Gudbranson's point shot got lost in a crowd, falling to the ice as Darcy Greenaway managed to get his stick on the puck before Simon Gronvaldt accidently kicked the puck into his own goal. The former Wellington Duke Greenaway gave Kingston a 2-1 lead and wasn't done yet.

At 15:02, Greenaway was the beneficiary of another nice bounce as a shot by Nathan Cull deflected off the shin pad of Worrad in the slot as Greenaway hacked in the rebound for his second of the night to give Kingston a 3-1 lead.

The Bulls called a timeout with just over five minutes remaining and upped their tempo considerably in the time remaining but couldn't solve Bobkov as Kingston took a 3-1 win for their first of the season against Belleville.

The Bulls' current slide stretches to four games as the powerplay is 1 for 23 in that span. "We need to work harder on the man advantage," said Coach Jake Grimes. "You automatically know that on a disadvantage the opposition is going to play with urgency and you have to be able to match that. It's not a good thing when we probably had just as many chances shorthanded tonight as we did on the powerplay. It doesn't help matters when we're blasting shots into the shin pads of oncoming defenders continually."

Grimes went on to credit the Frontenacs for a hard game of hockey. "They played with a lot of resilience with a big name out of the lineup. I don't think our guys looked prepared off the start of tonight's game and that's going to have to change or these struggles won't go away."

The Bulls outshot Kingston 35-25 as Bobkov used his big frame to calmly steer low shots away from danger and eat up shots without a rebound when his unit needed a whistle.

The Plymouth Whalers make their lone visit to the Yardmen on Saturday night in the last game prior to the Christmas break. The Bulls will enter Saturday's contest with a record of 19-13-0-0 against a Whalers team that plays Friday night in Oshawa. Plymouth beat Belleville 4-3 last Friday at the Compuware Arena. For ticket information, contact the Bulls Box Office at 613-966-8338.