The Maine Nordiques are getting shots on goal, but that wasn’t enough Friday night.
New Jersey Titans goalie Andrew Takacs made 39 saves in a 4-2 victory over the Nordiques in a North American Hockey League East Division game at The Colisee.
“I feel like we produced enough shots to bury, but we got to keep working on to make sure it goes over the line to produce (a goal),” Maine Nordiques coach Matt Pinchevsky said. “I think we played a full 60 minutes tonight, which is really good for our hockey club. We are trending in the right direction here.”
Chris Carroll opened the scoring with under six minutes remaining in the first period to give the Titans (21-9-1, 43 points) a 1-0 lead.
Ryan Coughlin scored on the power play to give New Jersey a 2-0 lead a minute later. The assists went to Brendan Dumas and Anthony Calafiore.
Defenseman Evan Orloff scored his first goal of the season to put the Nordiques (9-13-3, 18 points) on the board with 3:14 remaining in the first period. Theo Thrun and Patrick Schmiedlin had the assists.
Zion Green tied the game at 2-2 nearly four minutes into the second period. Defensemen Matt Connor and Jacob Pellerin had the assists.
Pinchevsky said the Nordiques controlled the pace of play all night.
“I loved our pace, I loved how we were attacking all over the ice,” Pinchevsky said. “We played like we owned the (ice sheet); we did, we were at home. That’s the most-penalized team in the league, for them to have only two penalties, maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not, but that’s how the referees saw it. I know they are dealing with, constantly dealing with, pressure during the game. Statistically, it didn’t add up, but statistics don’t always have to add up. Team with the most penalties in the league and they are on the road, I thought we could have seen a couple more power plays.”
The Thunder were 0-for-2 on the power play while the Titans scored on both of their power plays.
Carroll scored his second goal of the game, this time coming on the power play five minutes into the second period, to give the Titans the lead back.
Pinchevsky said there was a missed call on the goal.
“The referees saw what they saw,” Pinchevsky said. “I am not going to make this about the officials, but part of their team — the goal judges — it must have been pretty definitive in the referees’ eyes because a goal judge informed us it was most certainly a high stick, but it’s not what the officials saw.”
Tommy Bannister scored midway through the third period to extend the Titans’ lead to 4-2.
Avery Sturtz made 46 saves for the Nordiques in the loss.
Maine hosts New Jersey on Saturday at 7 p.m. at The Colisee.
NOTES
Caden Pattison played in his 100th regular-season game for the Nordiques.
Former Twin City Thunder forward Levente Keresztes isn’t in the lineup for the New Jersey Titans this weekend as he’s representing his home country Hungary at the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Division IA Under-20 Championships this week.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Comments are no longer available on this story