BRANTFORD, ONTARIO – The Brantford Titans welcomed the Elmira Sugar Kings to town on Saturday for Elmira’s first visit to Brantford since March 2nd, 2024. The Titans were looking to get back in the win column after dropping their last three games while Elmira came into the game winners of their last three. James Gall was back between the pipes for Brantford while Elmira countered with Liam Reid.
The Titans would get the scoring started early. It took just 3:02 for Ryan Scriven to fire home his 6th goal of the season, beating Reid upstairs to make it 1-0. Quinton Kim-Lemay and Aiden Kral assisted on Scriven’s goal. Elmira would look for a quick response as the next shift provided a couple opportunities for the Sugar Kings to tie the game, but James Gall had other ideas as he kept his team ahead by one. Exactly five minutes after the Titans opened the scoring, what seemed like a broken play resulted in the Titans second goal. A harmless dump in went to the right side of the Elmira net and a quick touch pass from Eli Humphrey would find the stick of Joey Kapel and he would deflect it past Reid to make it 2-0 Titans. Tyson Papple collected the secondary assist on Kapel’s sixth goal of the season. Pressure would continue from Elmira but they just couldn’t find a way to get one past Gall and the Brantford goaltender was standing on his head in the opening twenty. In the final five minutes of the period, Brantford would ice the puck on back to back clearing attempts and after the second icing, Elmira would force a turnover and Tanner Lawson would wrist the puck into the net from the point to get Elmira on the board. Nate Gravelle recorded the only assist on the goal. The Titans would carry a 2-1 lead into the intermission, despite getting outshot 13-10.
Just 1:02 into the second period, the Titans would get a very nice bounce. David Buchman would rip a harmless shot towards the net and it would deflect off Alex Rossi and past Liam Reid who had slid to his left to try and kick out the shot. It would be Buchman’s second of the season to put the Titans back up by two goals. Despite a ton of offensive zone time, the Sugar Kings could not find a way to solve James Gall in the middle frame. Titans would extend their lead to three as Adam Stipan would deflect the initial shot from Kim-Lemay and then the rebound would pop out right back to the Titans captain and he would bury it five hole for his ninth goal of the season. That would also end the afternoon for Sugar Kings goaltender Liam Reid who would get pulled immediately after the goal. Reed Straus would replace him in the Elmira net. Kim-Lemay and Calway would assist on the Stipan goal. The score would remain 4-1 in favour of Brantford for the rest of the period and they would carry their three goal lead into the third.
In the third, the Sugar Kings would control the pace of play for most of the final frame as they tried to mount a comeback against the Titans but James Gall was a brick wall in this one for the Titans. However, 11:08 into the third period, Tanner Lawson would mirror his first period goal by writing another shot on goal from the point and this one would also get past Gall to make things interesting and cut the lead to 4-2. The Titans would also get into some penalty trouble late in the game but the #1 ranked power play in the Eastern Conference could not solve the masked man in white as James Gall would go on to make 36 saves for the victory. One of his saves included a highlight reel, cross crease, sliding save with three and half minutes to go. The Titans would hang on for a 4-2 win, collecting their 10th win of the season.
The Titans return to action this Thursday in Hamilton before returning home on December 6th against Pelham.
