Titans edge Rattlers, Leclair nets 50th.

January 27 2012.

The Titans were heading into 2 games this weekend against 2 of the top five teams in the GMHL.  Starting with the Bradford Rattlers (24-4-3) on Thursday night then taking a short bus ride to Gravenhurst to face off against the South Muskoka Shield (23-7-4) on Friday evening.

Thursday night, the Titans welcomed back goalie Aaron Boyce, who had suffered an injury and hadn’t played since October 27, and got the start against the Rattlers.  It wasn’t the kind of start he would have liked as Joseph Gatti opened the scoring 11 seconds after the opening faceoff.  The first half of the period, the Rattlers held the advantage of the play and the shot clock.  Their strategy was a dump and chase style. Both teams were throwing their weight around as the fans witnessed some good body checks.  The Titans got things going as soon as the Rattlers got into penalty problems.  At 12:26 while on a power play, Robin Mendelsohn scored his 32nd goal with assists from Chris Levesque & Andre Leclair.  On the next shift, the Rattlers found themselves down 2 men and Mendelsohn (33) scored his second from Leclair & Richard Abbott.  The first period ended 2-1 Titans.  Shots were 25-13 Titans.

Chris Saganash made the score 3-1 when his original shot was mishandled by Rob Sutherland and the puck bounced off of Saganash into the net. About 6 minutes later Andreas Norrby scored on a scramble in front of Boyce to make the score 3-2.  Shortly after the goal a fight broke out between Saganash and Ugo Jaffeux.  From the crowd reaction, Saganash was given the title.  Both players were sent to the showers.

The scored remained the same until, with only 2.4 seconds left and a faceoff in the Titans zone, Norrby put a wrist shot under the crossbar right at the buzzer to tie the score.  Shots in the second were 17-13 Titans.

In the final period, the Titans regained the lead at 4:08 on nice 3 way passing play between Leclair, Mendelsohn and Tahbazian who was left alone in front of Sutherland and made no mistake.  But Bradford wasn’t giving up just yet.  At 9:07 Joseph Gatti scored his second to tie the game once more.  This set the stage for Andre Leclair, who scored his 50th goal of the season on a picture perfect set-up from Mendelsohn and Tahbazian. He accomplished this feat in just 34 games.  The lead was back again in the Titans favour.  The Rattlers had several chances in the last minutes but Boyce kept the puck out and the Titans players played a very good defensive style to prevent any damages towards the end.  The score ended 5-4 Titans.  This was the Titans 31st victory of the season.  They now lead Sturgeon Falls by 2 points and have 3 games on hand.

Final shot count was 58-41 Titans, 16-15 in the third.
The games 3 stars were Mendelsohn, Leclair and Rob Sutherland.


Photo taken by Tim Turner