Titan upsets Cataractes in wild affair
The Acadie-Bathurst Titan gained a measure of revenge Friday night in a wild affair as they upset the Shawinigan Cataractes 6-5.
The first period was relatively quiet until there was just 5:06 remaining when Bronson Beaton netted his third of the season off the stick of Jeffrey Truchon-Viel. The lead would be short-lived as Anthony Beauvillier scored his seventh of the year with 4:45 remaining. As quickly as the deadlock was created, it was broken as Alexandre Gosselin scored his first of the season on the power play at the 17:40 mark to give the Titan a 2-1 lead. Mark Simpson and Egor Popov picked up the assists. Shots in the first period were 13-11 for the Titan.
Bathurst wasted little time in the second period as they jumped out to a two-goal lead as Raphaèl Corriveau was credited with his third goal of the year just 1:34 into the middle stanza off passes from Jordan Maher and Egor Popov. Not to be outdone, Dennis Yan would make it a one-goal game with his sixth of the season at the 6:01 mark with Olivier Caouette and Beauvillier assisting. Alexandre Gosselin scored his second of the game seconds after going onto the power play at the eight minute mark.
The 4-2 lead would not last more than three minutes as Yan would score twice in a 26-second span with 9:37 and 9:11 remaining in the period to get both his seventh and eighth goals on the year completing the hat-trick. Nicholas Welsh and Félix-Antoine Bergeron assisted on Yan’s second goal while Kris Hodge and Beauvillier assisted on the third. With two minutes remaining in the period, the Cataractes would complete the comeback as Alexis D’Aoust scored his fifth goal of the season with Giovanni Fiore picking up the assist. With the Cataractes up 5-4 after 40 minutes, they also led on shots 15-12.
The third period got off perfectly for the Titan as Blanchard scored his second goal of the season just 27 seconds into the final frame. Simpson picked up his third assist of the night as the game returned to a deadlock. As the game remained five-all, things would change with just 1:36 remaining in the game as Bronson Beaton would find his shot sneaking through to the back of the net for his second of the game and fourth of the season off a pass from Blanchard. With the final buzzer sounding, the Titan would complete the upset and take their third victory of the year. Shots in the third were 14-5 for the Titan and 39-31 overall.
Jacob Brennan saw his record improve to 3-5-0-0 on the year stopping 26 of 31 shots for the victory while Antoine Samuel saw his record fall to 0-3-0-0 stopping 33 of 39 shots in the loss.
Special teams saw the Titan go a perfect two-for-two with the man advantage while the Cataractes were unsuccessful in their three power play opportunities.
The three stars of the game saw Nicholas Blanchard (1G, 2A) named the third star, Dennis Yan (3G, 1A) named the second star and Egor Popov (3A) named the first star.
GAME FACTS
- Bronson Beaton led all players with seven shots on net, four were considered dangerous shots.
- Bobby Zinkan made his QMJHL debut and was a +1 and had two hits.
- Mark Simpson and Egor Popov now have 11 points each. Simpson with 7 goals, 4 assists and Popov with 11 assists. Both have played in all ten games this season.
- Simpson led all players in the face-off circle, winning 18 of 34 battles.
- Olivier Caouette of the Cataractes led all players with three hits despite the Cataractes being out-hit 17-9 by the Titan.
The Titan are back in action Sunday afternoon as they host the Halifax Mooseheads at 3 p.m. AT while the Cataractes finish out their weekend road trip in Drummondville with a 4 p.m. ET start time.
Photo: Louis Légère
