Playing a full, 60-minute end-to-end game and using a balanced scoring attack, the New Jersey Titans defeated the visiting Maine Nordiques last night 3 – 1 to split the weekend series between the teams.
It was the Titans first win in five tries against the Nordiques this season.
Stephen Willey got the Titans on the board at 9:39 into the first period. Anthony Mollica picked up the loose puck at his own far side half wall and sent a bounce pass back to Evan Werner who made a cross-ice pass to newcomer Jack Karlsson. The Sweden native sent a long cross-ice pass up to a breaking Willey along the boards. As Willey gained the line, he made a nice move around a Nordiques defenseman and took a wrist shot from the faceoff dot that beat goaltender Tyriq Outen long side for his fifth goal of the season.
Maine’s Reese Farrell put the visitors on the board with 9:33 remaining in the second period. After the media time out, the Titans won the draw in the offensive zone, but Farrell intercepted a Titans pass and skated through center ice and into the New Jersey zone all alone and beat Berk Berkeliev through the five hole to tie the game at one.
Maine’s James Philpott was called for checking-from-behind with 7:35 left in the middle stanza to put the Titans on the powerplay. Less then a minute later Jake LaRusso gave the Titans the lead. With Caleb Price setting up the play at the near side blueline, he passed the puck over to Blake Humphrey on his right. Humphrey passed it over to Nick Seitz at the far side faceoff dot and Seitz sent a return pass to Humphrey. The Syracuse, NY native took a slapshot that was redirected by LaRusso out front and past Outen for his seventh goal of the season.
Humphrey closed out the Titans scoring at 5:02 into the third period. Brad Zona intercepted a Nordiques pass at center ice and brought the puck into the offensive zone. As Zona reached the near side faceoff dot, he made a centering pass to Humphrey in the slot and Humphrey took a wrist shot that beat Outen to make it a 3 – 1 game.
Berkeliev stopped 25 of 26 shots while Outen turned aside 31 of 34. Click here for the box score.
The Titans will play a matinee game on Wednesday at 1:35 PM at the Middletown Sports Complex.