WAYNE, NJ – The New Jersey Outlaws have accomplished pretty much everything they could in their first season in the FHL. They have already won the FHL regular season title and assured themselves home ice throughout the playoffs.
Saturday night at the Capital One Ice Vault, they were coming off of a loss to Cape Cod on Friday and facing the rough and rugged defending FHL playoff champion Akwesasne Warriors. Instead of putting their play on cruise control, the Outlaws played for pride and came away with a 6-2 win. Travis Kauffeldt and Kevin Cooper each scored a pair of goals to lead New Jersey to its league-record 40th victory of the season.
The Warriors have played with a chip on their shoulder for much of the season and penalties would play a big part in the game. Akwesasne took a penalty just 1:38 into the first period and it cost them as New Jersey’s Kauffeldt notched his first of the night at the 2:04 mark on the power play. Midway through the period, Akwesasne’s Jean Rene Forget, who had taken the early penalty, atoned for his mistake by beating Outlaws goalie Dan McWhinney to tie the score. Despite a combined 23 shots by the two teams in the stanza, McWhinney and Warriors netminder Alexandre Vincent kept the score tied going into the first intermission.
The middle period was when the Outlaws began to flex their scoring muscles. It started when Kauffeldt beat Vincent for the second time in the game. The goal, the 42nd for Kauffeldt this year, came at the 6:23 mark and put New Jersey ahead to stay. Two and a half minutes later, Cooper struck for his 40th of the season on the power play to increase the lead to 3-1. Then just under three minutes after Cooper’s tally, Jason Reese found the back of the net to make it 4-1 in favor of the home team. Late in the period, Akwesasne was able to draw closer when Martin Beaulne scored a short-handed goal to cut the margin to 4-2.
Mixed in among the goals was a whole lot of chippy play. It started at the four minute mark when the Warriors’ Ahmed Mahfouz and the Outlaws’ Dan Mercer went off for unsportsmanlike conduct. Tempers flared at the 9:18 mark when Mahfouz dropped the gloves with New Jersey’s John Goffredo. It got a little bit worse when Mahfouz got tangled up with New Jersey’s Jim Jensen, who ended up with a five minute elbowing major. In all, the teams combined for 33 minutes in penalties before the second intermission came.
Things seemed a bit calmer in the third period as only five penalties including a pair of fighting majors were whistled. The Outlaws were able to extend their lead with Cooper’s second of the game at the 6:20 mark. Brett Liscomb finished off the scoring with a power play goal with just over a minute left in the game.
New Jersey ended up out-shooting Akwesasne 41-33 in the contest that took two hours and 43 minutes to play. The Outlaws went 3-for-9 with the man advantage while the Warriors were 0-for-3. McWhinney, who is handling all of the goaltending duties with teammate Adam Dekker up with the ECHL’s Trenton Titans, recorded 31 saves to notch his 23rd victory of the season. On the other end, Vincent stopped 35 New Jersey shots in the loss. Cooper was named the game’s first star with Kauffeldt earning second star and Reese, who added two assists to his goal, was named third star.
Contact the author at gary.marchese@prohockeynews.com
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