Third period key in Islanders win over Titan

The Charlottetown Islanders erased a 2-0 deficit with four goals in the third period en route to a 4-3 win over the Acadie-Bathurst Titan Wednesday night at the K.C. Irving Regional Centre.

Islanders captain Ryan MacKinnon, making his Islanders debut, scored the game winning goal. Daniel Sprong and Filip Chlapik each had a goal and an assist.

Alexandre Gosselin and Mark Simpson each had a goal and an assist for the Titan.

The Islanders improve to 3-1-1-0 on the season, while the Titan drops to 1-4-0-0 on the young season.

Bathurst opened the scoring with Simpson’s third goal of the season on the power play at 8:25. Egor Popov and Nathan Medeiros drew assists. Shots were 7-6 in favour of the Titan.

The Titan took a 2-0 lead at the 4:18 mark of the second period with Raphael Corriveau scoring his second goal of the season. Alexandre Gosselin and Gabriel Gosselin drew assists. Titan controlled most of the play and outshot the Islanders 13-2.

In the third period, Sprong got the Islanders on the board with a power play goal at 2:27. The goal was Sprong’s third of the season and Will Thompson and Kameron Kielly drew assists. Moments later on another power play, Chlapik tied the game at 3:34 with his fourth goal of the season. Bradley Kennedy and Sprong drew assists.

Charlottetown took its first lead of the game at 6:56 with Guillaume Rioux-Legault scoring his first of the season with Chlapik drawing the lone assist.

The lead didn’t last long as Titan’s Alexandre Gosselin scored on the power play at 8:26 for his first of the year from Simpson.

The Islanders took a 4-3 lead with MacKinnon’s first of the season at 13:45. Filip Rydstrom won the face-off in the attacking zone and put the puck right to MacKinnon’s stick. Shots in the third period were 12-11 for the Titan.

Mason McDonald made 29 saves to pick up the win for Charlottetown in his first game back. Jacob Brennan made 15 saves in the loss for Bathurst.

Both teams will meet again Friday Sept. 26, 2014 in Charlottetown for a 7 p.m. AST puck drop.

Islanders Insights
-Islanders were two-for-three on the power play

-Islanders killed off three-of-five penalties

-Filip Chlapik was named the game’s second star

-Through give games, Chlapik leads the team in scoring with four goals and nine points

-Charlottetown was a team total 23-for-60 in the face-off circle

-Luc Dechenes led all Islanders players with a plus-two rating