Matthew Cameron led the Titans’ offense with four goals in a 7-3 win over the Northeast Generals at the New England Sports Village Saturday night.
New Jersey scored the final five goals, the last four coming within the last five minutes of the game, as they improve their record to 20-15-3. Titans goaltender Matt Ladd stopped 26 of the 29 shots he faced to earn the victory.
Chris Garbe notched four assists while Andrew Husted and Jimmy Dowd Jr. each recorded a goal and an assist.
Matt Wiesner thought he had opened the scoring as he took a shot that beat Ladd, but the puck slammed off the crossbar and stayed out. Minutes later, Cameron was given a sweet dish in the slot, and he ripped a wrist shot in the top-left corner past Sturma to give the Titans a 1-0 lead.
Late in the period, Sviatoslov Kuchynski was alone with the puck in front of the Titans’ net, but Ladd made a terrific pad save to keep it a 1-0 game after 20 minutes.
Just over three minutes into the second, Colin Bilek cut across the middle with the puck and made a drop pass back to his right for Louis Boudon, but Ladd pushed across to make another good pad save. Minutes later, Cameron scored again, making it his second multi-goal game of the season.
The Generals started to mount a comeback with Matt Demelis leading the way. He scored two goals in a span of 2:55 in the second period, and scored again 44 seconds into the third for a natural hat trick.
Northeast’s lead only lasted for about five minutes, as Jimmy Dowd evened the score after a shot bounced off the glass behind Marko Sturma and bounced in front of the net, giving Dowd an easy tap-in for his third of the season.
The turning point of the game was at 15:02 of the third period when Cameron scored on a three-on-two, earning himself the hat trick. Then, 11 seconds later, Tate Singleton barreled into the Generals’ zone and roofed a backhander over Sturma to extend the Titans’ lead to 5-3. Andrew Husted picked up his 10th of the season on a deflection at 16:37, and Cameron tacked on one more goal with 38 seconds left in the game.
Two players also made their debut with the Titans; Zach Faremouth played in his first game since being traded from Sherveport. He was credited with the assists on Cameron’s third goal and Singleton’s tally 11 seconds apart. Defenseman Nathan Albrecht was tendered by the Titans earlier this season, and he suited up for the first time with the team
New Jersey has now won three of its last four games, and will look to sweep the Generals in the two-game set with a Sunday matinee game. Puck drop is at 3:30 p.m. and will be streamed on hockeytv.com.