In a critical home-and-home series against New Jersey for the division lead, the Titans drew first blood by beating the Rebels last night 2-1 in a well played game.
The Titans came out fast and furious. They had six of the first seven shots of the game and then continued to swarm the Rebels zone for the rest of the period. Then defenseman Mason Van Tuyl was called for interference with 5:23 left in the opening stanza putting the Titans on the power play. The Titans Andrew Durham set up the play and found Raymond Brice who passed the puck onto Keegan Miller. Miller took a nice shot that beat Rebels’ goalie Darion Hanson putting the Titans up 1-0. New Jersey had 16 shots on goal in the first period alone.
After a back and forth second period with no scoring, the game entered the third period. Less then three minutes into the final period, Victor Ostling took a feed from Joseph Schuler and beat Hanson giving the Titans a 2-0 lead.
As the clock wound down passed the 10 minute mark of the final period, the fans could start to feel the pressure of the game. Then Gvido Jansons fed Philadelphia Little Flyers Junior A call up Pavel Mikhasenok who passed it back to the to Brennan Kapcheck who took a shot that beat Titans goalie Spencer Wright through a screen cutting the lead with 6:50 left in the game.
The Rebels then crashed the net for the rest of the game to try and tie it. The next seven of the nine shots on goal came off the stick of a Rebel but Wright held his ground as the clock ran out giving the Titans the win and sole possession of first place.
Hanson, who was playing in his second straight game, had 26 saves on 28 shots while Wright had 25 saves on 26 shots. Click here for the box score.
The two teams are at it again tonight at 7:00pm in New Jersey.