The New Jersey Titans will continue its string of seven consecutive road games with a contest tonight against the Philadelphia Rebels.
It will be the fourth time the teams are facing each other this season, with every game played at the Class of 1923 Arena. Last month, New Jersey took the first of a three-game set by a score of 4-2, but lost the next two games by scores of 3-1 and 2-1.
Last weekend, the Titans started off a three-game set against the Johnstown Tomahawks with a decisive 9-6 victory, but were unable to build off that game and lost the next two by scores of 4-3 and 5-1.
Head coach Craig Doremus spoke about shaking off the losses and looking to clean up their game as they get ready to face the first-place Rebels, who are currently 19-6-0 this season.
“We spent a lot of time this week reviewing some of our mistakes that unfortunately ended up in the back of our net,” Doremus said. “But we addressed those in practice, so we’re hoping (to play) a more complete game.”
One bright spot last week, however, was the performances of Gavin Gulash, Matthew Cameron and Oliver MacDonald. Gulash was named the NAHL second star of the East Division after scoring four goals, including a hat trick in Friday’s win. Cameron recorded two goals and two assists in the series while Oliver MacDonald notched three assists.
While the Titans are fifth in the league with 82 goals scored through 24 games, Doremus said its largely because different players have gotten hot at different times. He said he’d like to see more consistent production from the entire roster, especially since leading scorer Nick Boyagian will be out of the lineup for the second consecutive game.
“Unfortunately for us, we haven’t gotten that consistent, up-and-down the lineup play for us yet. At times the Boyagian line’s been very good, last weekend you had Gavin’s line step up, but this will be a tough challenge without Nick in the lineup, so everyone will have to step up and take advantage of the opportunity they’ll be given,” he said.
In the last seven games, the Titans only scored one goal that came from the stick of a defenseman, which was a power-play tally from Eric Manoukian in a Nov 25 game against the Northeast Generals.
Meanwhile, the Rebels are coming off a three-game sweep against the Generals, scoring a total of 14 goals in those games. However, in 15 games between the Rebels and Titans in the last two seasons, only four of them had a goal differential above three, showing the games are normally very close.
“Any time we play against the Rebels, it tends to be a hard-fought, tight-checking game where every little detail matters,” Doremus said.
The game starts at 7:35 p.m., and all of the action will be streamed on hockeytv.com.