The verdict on how well a new-look Binghamton Senators team has performed at the start of its 2010-11 American Hockey League season: too early to tell.

After an Oct. 8 opening night 5-1 victory against the Adirondack Phantoms, the team was on the losing end the next day, falling to the Norfolk Admirals 7-4.

The B-Sens, minus longtime veterans Denis Hamel, Josh Hennessy and Jeremy Yablonski, opened their season last Friday against the Phantoms at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena.

Binghamton opened scoring in the first period with a pair of power-play goals on Adirondack goaltender Johan Backlund. B-Sens forward Cody Bass deflected a rising wrist shot from defenseman Andr√É© Benoit for the first tally, while forward Kaspars Daugavins made a similar shot through traffic for the second goal less than two minutes later.

Midway through the second period, Binghamton found its way onto the scoreboard again after Benoit stripped the puck from an Adirondack defenseman and passed it to forward Jim O’Brien, who tapped it past Backlund on a short breakaway.

‘You keep on moving your feet and eventually something opens up,’ O’Brien said, referring to Benoit’s play to set up the goal. It was Benoit’s third assist of the game. ‘We got them on an odd-man rush, went to the net and got a good puck through and managed to redirect it in.’

B-Sens newcomer Bobby Butler extended Binghamton’s lead to 4-0 after scoring a wraparound goal on a man-advantage four minutes into the third period.

‘You take what you’ve got, give them a little bit of a foundation and allow them to be what they are,’ head coach Kurt Kleinendorst said of his team’s success on the power play. ‘For most of it, it was our players just being a little bit creative.’

Adirondack forward Patrick Maroon scored the team’s lone goal on Binghamton goaltender Mike Brodeur a few minutes later.

Brodeur, who made 27 saves throughout the night, left the game in the third period with an upper body injury after colliding with a B-Sens player during an Adirondack odd-man rush.

Ten out of the 18 players Binghamton dressed scored points in the opening night victory, with goals coming from three of the four forward lines.

‘You really couldn’t find many passengers tonight,’ Kleinendorst said. ‘I thought that the guys for the most part were out there and doing all the little things [right].’

B-Sens backup goaltender Barry Brust got the start when the Norfolk Admirals came into town on Saturday, but fell short to the Admirals’ offensive pressure.

Binghamton led Norfolk 1-0 after the opening frame, but tied a franchise record by allowing six goals in the second period, three of which came in a span of 97 seconds.

The two teams played a back-and-forth game on the scoreboard, but Norfolk emerged victorious after scoring a pair of unanswered goals in the third period, sealing a 7-4 victory. O’Brien and Butler once again collected goals, while Benoit rounded out the weekend with four assists.

Binghamton’s defensive woes continued on Friday when the team fell 7-1 to the defending Calder Cup champions, the Hershey Bears. Backup goaltender Robin Lehner started the game for the B-Sens while Brodeur was sidelined due to injury.

Hershey quickly silenced the crowd at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena by scoring a goal 2:10 into the first period.

After Hershey added another goal to form a 2-0 lead, Binghamton answered when forward Corey Locke maneuvered a shot through a scrum of players in the crease on the power play.

Locke’s line continued to add pressure near the end of the first period with a two-on-one opportunity and a shot by forward Ryan Keller that hit the crossbar. But minutes after Binghamton’s only goal, Hershey would add another to end the period 3-1.

‘As soon as we would turn pucks over, they would capitalize on that,’ Locke said.

Hershey would go on to score three more goals in the second period and a final goal in the third to win the game 7-1. Some of the goals were created by Hershey’s potent offense, while others were made possible by Binghamton’s defensive lapses.

‘It’s a whistle to whistle sport ‘ you can’t let your guard down for a second,’ Kleinendorst said. ‘We’ve been letting our guard down going back to the front of the net where other teams are a little bit more hungry and aggressive and they’re banging in rebounds.’

Binghamton rounded out the weekend with a 2-1 loss to the Syracuse Crunch on Saturday night and traveled to Toronto on Sunday afternoon to play the Marlies, who they beat 3-1. Locke added in two more assists over the weekend and leads the B-Sens in scoring with six points in five games. Keller and Butler, his linemates, have five points each.