Titans goalie Craig Wood tries to find the puck through traffic. PHOTO SUBMITTED.
The Temiscaming Titans were facing some stiff competition over the weekend on two road games.
First on the list was the South Muskoka Shield on Friday evening, who were undefeated with a record of 6-0-0. The Titans left the Gravenhurst Centennial arena with a 9-1 win in their pockets.
This was the first game for the Titans following a change at the helm as team President Vincent Labranche was acting as head coach.
Robert Miller, who was the head coach since the start of the season was relieved of his duties earlier in the week. Miller had previously been the head coach of the NDA's Algonquin Barons hockey team.
The Titans responded with perhaps theIr best effort of the season.
Marc-Antoine Arseneau led the charge with 2 goals and 3 assists. Danny Visitor had a hat trick while Brandon Case had a pair. Single tallies came by Ryder Murray & Martin Jacobsson. Craig Wood, the games first star stopped 34 of 35 shots for the win, his 5th of the season. The only dark spot of the game was when Sebastian Knutsson was sent to the ice and then to hospital after receiving a high elbow to the head area. Knutsson was later released from hospital.
On Saturday, the Titans took the short bus ride to South River to face the Spartans.
This would be the 3rd meeting between these 2 northern division rivals. The Titans had won the previous encounters 11-4 and 5-1.
The much improved Spartans would not be easy prey as they had recently acquired goaltender Marc Audet in a trade with the Titans. The emotion and team play was evident early in this game as the Titans outshot the home team Spartans 13-3 in the first period and led 1-0 on a Brandon Case goal.
In the middle period, the Titans scored four more goals in the space of 10 minutes to basically put the game out of reach for the Spartans. Brandon Petawabano, who was acquired by the Titans from the Spartans scored as did Andreas Nordkvist, Matthew Ross on a power play and a short handed marker from Elliot Willetts had the Titans comfortably ahead 5-0 after 40 minutes. In the first minute of the final period Marc-Antoine Arseneau made it 6-0 and then Tyson Levesque rounded out the scoring with about 8 minutes to play.
The win was the sixth for Craig Wood and his first shutout making 25 saves. He also lowered his GAA to 1.06 and raised his save % to .965. Wood is now in top spot in three of the four goalie statistics. Wood was named the games first star for a second straight game.
Lumberjacks hit double digits
The Sturgeon Falls lumberjacks came out on top with a 10-9 victory in overtime against the Grey Highlands Bravehearts on Saturday.
Joyden Pean got the win between the pipes in the high scoring affair.
L-Jacks forward Adrien Guenette had 4 goals including the overtime winner, Theoren Petawabano added a pair of goals, Yanick Aubé, Troy Gunner, Thomas Petagumskum and Mathieu Ouellette each added one of their own. Aube also contributed with 6 assists in the win.
