BRANTFORD, ONTARIO – On a rainy Saturday in Brantford, the Titans welcomed the Ayr Centennials to the Gretzky Centre for the second time this season. Ayr won the first game between these two clubs back on September 13th by a score of 5-4 in overtime. James Gall got the start in net for Brantford while Ayr countered with Cruz Reznik.
Centennials would control the pace of play early on in the game trying to get off to a good start and end their three game losing streak. They would establish their offensive presence early but could not solve Gall. Titans would start to get their legs going around the five minute mark of the opening frame. They didn’t fire a ton of shots at Reznik but they started to get some good looks. At 6:51, a bad turnover by the Centennials results in Alexander Karmanov’s first GOHL goal to make it 1-0. Karmanov held the line at the right point and fired it past the Ayr goaltender. Both teams would trade chances throughout the middle portion of the period but no goals were scored until the last quarter of the frame. Chaos would ensue in the Centennials zone and it would be the captain backhanding home his third goal of the season to extend the Titans lead to two. Ryan Scriven and Chase Bailey-Reid collected the assists. Titans would get into some penalty trouble late in the frame as Christie and Karmanov were both assessed minor penalties, putting Ayr on a 5 on 3 advantage. The Centennials would not score however so the two man advantage would carry over into the second period.
With Ayr starting the second period on the power play, the puck was in the Titans zone for the first minute and a half but it never entered the net. James Gall made a couple early saves in the period to keep it 2-0. However, despite the Centennials not scoring on the power play, they would break through at even strength. Lincoln Baker streaked into the zone on the left side of the ice and fired a wrister past Gall to make it 2-1. The Titans would once again put Ayr on a 5 on 3 advantage a couple minutes later. But just like the first time, the Centennials could not score. The Ayr goal scorer Baker would then get called for hooking, putting the Titans on the power play for the second time and Kaleb Frank would bury his 7th of the season to restore the Titans two goal lead. Quinton Kim-Lemay and Matteo Gauthier collected the assists. Just past the midway point of regulation, a huge scrum would take place deep in the Titans zone. A total of 24 penalty minutes were handed out at 11:32. The parade to the penalty would slow for the time being towards the late stages of the period. After Baker took his second minor penalty of the period, he would break in on Gall on a 2 on 1 with Lukas Marik. Baker’s shot was stopped but Marik would receive the puck thanks to a juicy rebound allowed by Gall and Marik would bury it to get his team back within 1. Dawson Morris also grabbed an assist on the goal. With less than a minute to play in the second, Kaleb Frank would put himself in the conversation for highlight of the night. He would toe drag the puck around a defender, go to the backhand and sneak it under the arm of the goaltender Reznik to make it 4-2. That would be the score at the end of the second.
Entering the third, the Titans were just 20 minutes away from their first victory of the season while the Centennials were in jeopardy of dropping their fourth straight game. There would be no goals scored through a large portion of the third period but things would get interesting at 14:06. Carter Lewandowski would score an unassisted goal to get his team back within one. Centennials would pull Reznik with a couple minutes to go to try and get the equalizer but they could not get one past Gall as he would shut the door, helping his team grab their first win of the season. Final shots favoured Ayr by a mark of 45-34.
James Gall would stop 42 shots to earn his first victory of the season while Cruz Reznik stopped 30 in a losing effort.
The Brantford Titans improve to 1-7-2-0 while Ayr drops to 5-6-1-0. The Titans are back on home ice on October 18th against the Port Colborne Sailors. Puck drop will be at 1:00pm at the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre.
