ELMIRA, N.Y. – The Elmira Aviators (8-12-3-0) couldn’t follow up another strong start, losing 6-3 to the New Jersey Titans (13-7-1-2) at the LECOM Event Center Saturday night.
For the second straight game, the Aviators opened the scoring inside the opening 20 seconds. Evan Dantas sniped one home for his eighth goal of the season.
Like in Friday’s game, the Titans would answer shortly after to tie the game at one. However, the Aviator attack kept going to re-establish their lead.
On the power play, Dantas wired a cross-ice pass on the tape of Matthew Maglio, who blasted a one-timer to put the Aviators back on top. Maglio leads Elmira with five power-play tallies on the campaign.
Two minutes later, Yianni Koukouves sprung Max Campbell on a breakaway to extend the Aviators’ lead to 3-1. Koukouves now has points in four straight games.
Elmira scored its three goals on its first four shots. That chased New Jersey starting goaltender Tyler Rounds out of the game and put Friday starter Andrei Nikolaev back between the pipes.
Nikolaev, a 2009-born goaltender committed to play college hockey at Boston University, went on to be perfect in Saturday’s game. He made 24 saves on 24 Aviator shots.
The Titans would battle back to tie the game in the first period with a pair of goals. They then took their first lead of the game with two goals in the middle period.
New Jersey dominated the second period across the two-game series. The Titans outshot the Aviators 39-14 in the two middle frames this past weekend, outscoring Elmira 3-0.
The Titans took their first lead in the second period of both games and never looked back in either contest.
New Jersey controlled the final period, adding one more power play goal to make it five unanswered scores.
Elmira has now lost four straight games and has been swept at home for the first time under head coach Leeor Shtrom. Next weekend, the Aviators will welcome in-state rivals, the Rochester Jr. Americans, to the LECOM Event Center for the first time this season.
Game 1 is on Black Friday, Nov. 28, and Game 2 is Saturday, Nov. 29. Both puck drops are scheduled for 7 p.m. The games can be streamed on NATV or listened to on WINGZ93.
Mac Young is the play-by-play voice of the Elmira Aviators. To contact him, email [email protected].