SPRINGFIELD, MA – Left wing Broc Little scored the lone shootout goal as the Manchester Monarchs dropped their Season Opener, 3-2 in a shootout, to the Springfield Falcons at the MassMutual Center on Saturday night.

Manchester (0-0-0-1) is ranked third in the Atlantic Division with one point.  Springfield (1-0-0-0) is ranked first in the Northeast Division with two points.

“We played hard tonight and we had chances galore, especially in overtime,” said Monarchs Head Coach Mark Morris.  “We clanked two posts in the shootout.  It would’ve been nice to be rewarded with another point for the effort.  Springfield is a solid team and they put us to the test.  We’ll continue to improve as we find out more about our personnel and find some chemistry.  We have plenty to work on, but for our first game, I thought we showed lots of promise.”

Monarchs’ goaltender Martin Jones turned aside shootout attempts by left wing Sean Collins, left wing Jonathan Audy-Marchessault, center Michael Chaput, and center Andrew Joudrey.  Little beat Jones with a backhand shot into the top right corner of the net.  Shots from Monarchs’ right wing Tyler Toffoli and center Jordan Weal hit off the crossbar and the right post, respectively.  Falcons’ netminder Jeffrey Smith halted shots from forward Nick Shore, left wing Tanner Pearson and left wing Andy Andreoff.

The Monarchs jumped on the scoreboard early with Weal’s first goal of the season at 5:58 of the opening period.  Right wing Brandon Kozun skated down the right wing of the Falcons zone and looked to pass to Andreoff.  Kozun decided to shoot the puck and Smith made the chest save.  The rebound fell in front of the netminder.  With Andreoff and a Falcon’s defender crashing the crease, Weal picked up the loose puck and backhanded it into the net.  Defenseman Andrew Campbell assisted on the opening goal.

The Falcons answered back by tying the game, 1-1, at 8:23 of the first frame with center Darryl Boyce’s first tally of the season.  Defenseman Frederic St. Denis found Joudrey along the right wing half-wall in the Monarchs zone.  Surveying the scene, Joudrey sent a pass to Boyce between the hash marks.  Boyce stickhandled the puck for a moment before slipping a shot under Jones’ pads to tie the game.

Toffoli gave the Monarchs a 2-1 advantage at 6:13 of the second period with his first tally of the season.  Pearson picked the pocket of a Falcons player in the left corner of Springfield’s zone and carried it behind the net.  Sending the puck into the slot, Toffoli one-timed it into the back of the net.

Just over a minute later, Chaput picked up an unassisted goal to tie the game at 2-2.  Monarchs defenseman Andrew Bodnarchuk attempted a pass from behind the Monarchs end red line to Andreoff who was near the bottom of the left face-off circle.  The puck was just out of Andreoff’s reach and Chaput picked up the pass and sniped a quick shot past Jones at 7:14 of the middle frame.

The Falcons thought they had won the game in overtime but the officials went to the video review system and determined the puck was batted out of the air.  The officials ruled a no goal.

Jones (0-0-1) took his first shootout loss of the season stopping 22-of-24 shots through regulation and overtime.  Smith (1-0-0) earned his first win of the season making 30 saves on 32 shots and blanking all five shootout snipers.

Manchester went 0-for-4 on the power play.  Springfield was 0-for-7 with the man advantage.

Notables:  The Monarchs all-time record in Season Openers is 5-7-0-1…The only other Season Opener that was pushed to a shootout was the first game that Head Coach Mark Morris served as the bench boss; Monarchs won 5-4 in the shootout over the Worcester Sharks at the Verizon Wireless Arena on October 5, 2001…Goaltender Martin Jones is 2-0-0-1 in Season Openers over the last three seasons.

The Monarchs travel to the Dunkin’ Donuts Center for their second-of-four road games to open the 2013-14 season as they take on the Providence Bruins at 7:05 p.m. on Friday, October 11.  Catch all of the play-by-play action of Monarchs hockey with Ken Cail on the Monarchs Radio Network WGIRAM.com and at www.manchestermonarchs.com, presented by Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.