New Jersey goaltender Matthew Ladd stopped all twenty-three shots he faced to lead the Titans to a 4 – 0 victory over the visiting Philadelphia Rebels. The win enabled the teams to split the weekend series. It was the first time all season that the Rebels had been shutout.
In must have been an omen on the first goal of the evening. After the Rebels had some scoring chances early in the game that Ladd had to make some grade A saves, the Titans got on the board first with miscommunication between Eli Billing and Carson Moniz.
New Jersey’s Andrew Husted dumped the puck in from the blue line behind the Rebels net where Billing went to retrieve it. As Billing went to pass the puck behind the net to Moniz it was intercepted by Hunter Alden who immediately passed it up to Zachary Faremouth who shot the puck into the open net to give the Titans a 1 – 0 lead with 9:42 left in the first period.
The Titans would double their lead at the halfway point of the second period.
With the teams battling behind the Rebels net, the puck would come out to Tate Singleton at the faceoff circle. He would pass the puck to Tyler Antonucci on his left. Antonucci would slightly skate towards his right and took a shot that was saved by Billing but the rebound came out to Ryan Naumovski who slid the puck underneath Billing for his thirteenth goal on the season.
The Titans third goal was eerily similar to their first one. New Jersey’s Spence Stanley had the puck in his own zone and passed it up to Kyle Jeffers who touched passed it into the Rebels zone. As the puck went behind the boards, Billing went to play it off the end boards but it was intercepted by Naumovski who passed the puck up around the far side boards to Gavin Gulash. Gulash would skate around the faceoff circle and take a wrist shot that beat Billing high short side to make it a 3 – 0 game just 6:06 into the third period.
Husted would finish out the Titans scoring on a nice give-and-go with Singleton. Husted would bring the puck out of his zone and through center ice. As he entered the offensive zone on a two-on-one with Singleton, Husted passed the puck to Singleton on his left. As Singleton went around a Rebels defender he passed the puck across the goalmouth to Husted who redirected it past Billing and into the open net to make it a 4 – 0 game.
Billing, who was playing in his sixth straight game, stopped 24 of 28 shots he faced. Click here for the box score.
This game concluded a stretch of five consecutive game among the two teams with the Rebels winning three of them.
The Rebels will play the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Knights for two games with Friday night’s game at the bunker and Saturday night’s game at the Wells Fargo Center.
