White-Hot Stefishen-Tassone-Irwin Line Powers Jackals Past Beast

ELMIRA, N.Y. - The line of Taylor Stefishen, Matt Tassone and Brayden Irwin powered the Jackals to victory last night with 12 combined points. Each of the three notched four points in the Jackals' 5-3 victory against the Brampton Beast.

The white-hot line for the Jackals got the team on the board just 3:23 into the opening stanza. Stefishen fed Irwin from below the goal-line and Irwin muscled his way to the net-front where he found Tassone for the captain's fourth goal of the season. Later in the first period, Irwin was the beneficiary of a net-front dish from Stefishen and potted his fourth of the season at 16:30. The Jackals peppered Brampton goaltender Trevor Cann, posting 22 shots in the first 20 minutes.

Paul McIlveen got the Jackals started at 9:19 of the second period with a rebound goal from the slot. Mike Seidel's wrap-around attempt bounced off of Cann and out to McIlveen, who recorded his second of the season. Seidel added an assist for the second straight night after making his Jackals debut on Friday and Allan McPherson also recorded an assist. Just a minute and seven seconds later Irwin found the scoresheet again after Stefishen fed him cross-ice for the one-timer to put Elmira up 4-0. Tassone also added an assist on Irwin's second of the night. Jason Pitton scored late in the second to get Brampton on the board. Josh McQuade and Cailin Wild recorded the assists.

Pitton struck again on the power-play in the third period to cut the Jackals lead to two. He redirected the shot from the point and swayed some momentum to the Brampton side. Matt Maione scored his first professional goal in his Brampton debut at 16:21 of the third to inch within one. However, it was the Tassone-Stefishen-Irwin unit who would snuff out the Beast's comeback effort with the empty-net tally. Tassone finished with two goals and two assists, Irwin ended with two goals and two assists and Stefishen recorded four assists in the Jackals 5-3 victory.

Sam Marotta stopped 29 of 32 shots faced for the win in his first professional start. Cann was pulled halfway through the second period, but stopped 32 of 36 shots faced and took the loss. Grant Rollheiser stopped all 12 shots he faced once entering the game in the second period.