Blanchard, Simpson power Titan over Tigres 7-2

The Acadie-Bathurst Titan wrapped up a series of four games in eight days by winning their third straight at home, downing the Victoriaville Tigres 7-2 Sunday afternoon.

With six Titan players registering multi-point games, Mark Simpson led the way with four assists while Nicholas Blanchard scored twice and added an assist to power the Titan to their third victory in four games.

Blanchard opened the scoring 6:15 into the first period with his eighth of the season from Simpson and Titan captain Guillaume Brisebois. This was quickly followed 40 seconds later by Raphaël Corriveau’s 10^th of the year with Simpson picking up his second assist of the game to make it 2-0 for the some side. Christophe Boivin also picked up an assist on the play. Shortly thereafter, Nicolas Dumulong and Tommy Veilleux dropped the gloves. Dumulong dominated the scrap before ending things with a take-down. Despite out-shooting the Tigres 11-6, the score would remain 2-0 for the Titan after 20 minutes of play.

Jeffrey Truchon-Viel added to the Titan’s score total with his fourth goal of the year 3:35 into the second period with assists going to Anthony Gingras and Matthew Cusson, giving Cusson his first point since being acquired by the Titan two weeks ago. Just 11 seconds later, Victoriaville would finally get on the board as Félix Lauzon beat Titan goaltender Jacob Brennan for his second of the season. 3-1 for the Titan is how the score would remain as the second period would come to an end. Shots on goal in the period were 18-9 for Acadie-Bathurst.

Blanchard would kick off the third period for the Titan putting the game out of reach for the Tigres, scoring his second of the game and ninth of the season from Aaron Kerr just 19 seconds into the final frame to make it a 4-1 game. This would be followed up at the 1:43 mark by Nathan Medeiros who would put home his first goal in the QMJHL from Cusson, who was credited with his second assist of the game. Kerr would then find his place in the goal column with his seventh of the year on the power play at the 8:02 mark from Blanchard and Simpson, giving the Titan a 6-1 lead.

The Tigres would cut into the lead slightly after Gabriel Gagné notched his 10^th of the year while on a 4-on-3 power play with 8:20 remaining in the third. Yan Pavel Laplante and Angelo Miceli were credited with assists to make it a 6-2 game. Not long after, Boivin would score his sixth of the year from Corriveau and Simpson with 6:50 to play, beating Tigres goaltender François Tremblay to make it 7-2 for the Titan which is how the score would stand at the final buzzer. Shots in the third period were 14-12 in Victoriaville’s favor, however the Titan retained the overall edge 41-29.

With his 21th appearance in goal on the year for the Titan, Brennan saw his record improve to 7-12 stopping 27 of 29 shots faced. Tremblay made his second appearance for the Tigres since returning to the team and saw his record fall to 0-2 allowing seven goals on 41 shots in the loss.

The Titan were successful once in seven power play opportunities while the Tigres were one-for-four with the man advantage.

GAME NOTES:

• In addition to his two-point performance, Titan forward Raphaël Corriveau led all players with four hits. The Tigres narrowly out-hit the Titan 14-13 in the game.
• Aaron Kerr’s goal and assist on Sunday extends his point streak to eight consecutive games. He has five goals and four assists in that stretch.
• Mark Simpson’s four assists pushes him to new personal bests for assists and total points in a season. In 25 games this season, Simpson has 10 goals and 13 assists. In 44 games last season with the Moncton Wildcats, Simpson scored eight goals and had 12 assists. Simpson was also a +4 against the Tigres.
• Nicholas Blanchard also set new personal bests for goals and total points in a season. In 63 games last year for the Titan, Blanchard had seven goals and 17 points. In 25 games this season, Blanchard now has nine goals and 19 points.
• Simpson (third), Kerr (second) and Blanchard (first) were named the three stars of the game.

The Titan have now won three straight home games, and wrap up a series of four games in eight days earning seven of a possible eight points.

They are back in action this Saturday when they travel to Gatineau to take on the Olympiques following a break for the QMJHL games in the SUBWAY Super Series. Game 5 of the six-game series will be played at the KC Irving Regional Center this Tuesday at 8p.m. and can be seen live on Rogers Sportsnet. A limited number of tickets remain and can be purchased at the box office or online at admission.com.