Brian Lupo scored a natural hat trick to help lead the visiting New Jersey Titans to a 5 – 4 win over the Danbury Jr. Hat Tricks in the Red Buckets 2021-22 season opener.
Lupo got the Titans on the board first at 8:54 left in the opening period. He made it 2 – 0 with 7:09 remaining in the first.
The Middletown, NJ native completed the natural hat trick with 8:07 remaining in the second. Ryan Mckenna scored a powerplay goal with 6:42 left in the middle stanza to give the Red Buckets a 4 – 0 lead.
Danbury’s Daniel Khatib scored his first of three goals with 5:07 left in the second to make it 4 – 1, and then the Titans regained the four-goal lead when Sam Senft hit the back to the net with 3:36 left in the middle stanza to make it 5 – 1.
Khatib finished out his natural hat trick by scoring two power-play goals. The first with 2:64 left in the second and then 9:11 remaining in the third to make it a 5 – 3 game.
Danbury’s Grant Hanifen made the game tight when he scored a powerplay goal with 2:08 remaining in the contest to make it 5 – 4 but it wasn’t enough as the Titans won their first game of the new season.
Titans netminder Logan Hensley stopped 29 of 33 shots while Danbury’s Sean Bolduc turned aside 20 of 25. Click here for the box score.
The Titans are home next Saturday and Sunday for a two-game series against the Bay State Bobcats.