Storm strong early, defeats Trenton
2/17/2005TRENTON, N.J. - Finally, a perfect Storm for two periods in Trenton.
It had been a long time coming, but the Storm put everything together for two periods in an impressive 7-5 victory against the Trenton Titans at Sovereign Bank Arena last night.
The Storm went into the game winless (0-8-2) in Trenton before it blitzed the home team with seven goals in the first two periods.
The Storm gets a chance for another win here at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow.
The Titans scored three goals to wake up a frustrated crowd of 3,532 in the third period.
While the win might have been enjoyable for the Storm, the third period didn't sit well with coach Nick Vitucci, who was already thinking of tomorrow's game seconds after a victory.
"It was a very frustrating win," Vitucci said. "[The first two periods] all came with hard work and playing smart, and we forgot about that in the third period. We are not a good enough team to play for 40 minutes, especially against that team."
The Storm took it to the Titans right from the start as Tyler Knight deflected a Jason Jozsa shot behind Andrew Allen 52 seconds into the contest. Scooter Smith stole the puck off the stick of Matt Libby midway through the first period and beat Allen on a breakaway to give the Storm a 2-0 lead.
Rick Kowalsky gave the Titans a brief glimmer of hope with a power-play goal. But the Storm responded as Paul Ballantyne one-timed a perfect Sam Paolini pass for one of three Storm power-play goals and a 3-1 lead after one period.
Paolini would finish with a goal and three assists. Smith, playing against the team that traded him away last season, added an assist on Paolini's goal early in the second period that pushed the Storm lead to 4-1.
The Storm blew the game open in the second period, getting goals from Paolini, Nick Parillo short-handed, Tomas Micka and Dan Eberly.