Gulls stirring AHL pot with six-game points streak

The American Hockey League’s 2025-26 season is still in its infancy but the San Diego Gulls appear to be stirring the pot.

The Gulls carry a season-high six-game points streak (three regularion wins, one overtime win and three overtime losses) into Friday’s road game at Coachella Valley, then host the Calgary Wranglers on Saturday to conclude another busy weekend.

The Gulls have captured points in each of their last four home games , including all three games on their latest homestand (4-3 in overtime over Bakersfield on Nov. 14, 7-0 over Abbotsford on Nov. 15 and a 5-4 overtime loss in Wednesday’s contest against San Jose.

The Gulls started their streak of plenty (10 out of 12 possible points in the six games) with a 6-4 win in Henderson on Nov. 5, then stole three points in a two-game series against the arch rival Ontario Reign on Nov. 7 (6-4 home win) and Nov. 8 (4-3 road loss in overtime).

The Gulls recorded back-to-back six-goal games against Henderson and Ontario and scored a season-high seven goals in the win over the Canucks, the defending Calder Cup champions.

“We’ve got points in eight of our last nine games, or something like that,” San Diego head coach Matt McIlvane said. “So that’s a big deal, and your objective is to collect points. The big concern is playing as well as you can and some days you do and other days you learn. The good news is things have been going pretty good for us, and the guys are feeling good about themselves.”

Winging it
With the exception of the game against Abbotsford, the Pacific Division’s season-long bottom dweller, the Gulls have had to fight for what they’ve achieved (a 5-1-3 record) since a 5-2 loss in Henderson on Oct. 25.

The Gulls had to battle for a wholly satisfying comeback win after trailing the Condors by deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 in the teams’ matchup on Nov. 14. But the Gulls but brought the 9,023 fans in attendance to their feet by netting the equalizing goal on a power play with one second remaining in regulation and then capped the inspired victory with a goal just 1:11 into overtime.

Sam Colangelo, recently assigned to the Gulls by trhe NHL parent Anaheim Ducks, netted his first AHL goal of the season with 0.4 seconds left in regulation. Justin Bailey then sent the large crowd home happy with the game-winning OT goal.

Matt Copponi and Rem Pitlick put San Diego in a 2-0 hole to start the game with first period goals at 4:52 and 11:20.

Copponi’s goal was short-handed while Pitlick scored on the power play. Tim Washe halved the score at 17:29 of the period with his team-leading seventh goal of the season, assisted by Tristan Luneau and Stian Solberg.

Bailey scored his fourth goal of the season at 6:26 of the second period to tie the game, 2-2. Roland McKeown and Sasaha Pastujov supplied the helpers – the fourth for McKeown and the sixth for Pastujov.

But Bakersfield (5-5-3) went back in front, 3-2, at 8:32 on Pitlick’s second goal of the game, his fifth of the season, assisted by James Hamblin and Rhett Pitlick.

Then it was the Gulls’ turn with a goal as Colangelo scored just before time expired. Pastujov (his seventh assist of the season) and Ryan Carprenter (his fifth assist of the season) picked up the assists on the man-poser goal to send the game into the extra period.

The Gulls (5-4-3) out-shot the Condors 17-6 in the third period to play catch up to finish regulation with a 37-21 edge. The Gulls took the only shot in the OT period and Bailey made its count with his second goal of the contest to earn first star of the game honors.

Ville Husso picked up the win between the pipes, his team-leading fifth this season, with 28 saves. Husso improved to 5-4-1 on the season with a 2.44 GAA and 0.915 save percentage.

The hosts swept the three-star awards.

The Gulls moved into seventh place in the 10-team Pacific Division standings while Bakersfield slipped to eighth place. The Gulls remained one point behind both San Jose and Coachella Valley, two points behind Henderson, three points behind Calgary, four points behind Ontario and 12 points behind the division-leading Colorado Eagles.

Colorado and Wilkes-Barre/Screanton shared the league’s best record with 25 points.

“ I’ve never been on a team that has this much resiliency,” Bailey said. “There’s no panic when we’re down two, down three. It’s happened multiple times this season. Obviously, you want to be up in the game. You don’t want to be clawing your way back, but it’s a game with a lot of good players. It’s pro hockey, so just the ability to have no panic, continue to trust in what we’re doing even if it takes to the last three seconds. Super resilient group, and that’s something you really want to have.

“The atmosphere of Friday and Saturday nights here makes you want to put on a show. With the Padres being done there’s some fans up for grabs and just the city as a whole does such a good job supporting us. The message has been playoffs, that’s the goal. Obviously, we’re taking it game by game, but anytime we can put on the show in front of these fans that’s something special that you get to do. I know they’re happy to be part of it, too.”

“The fans were amazing, and we felt them pulling for us all the way through,” McIlvane said. “To be able to have an ending like that and get to see them erupt a couple of times. That’s a really cool night at Pechanga.”

Military Appreciation Night
The Gulls hosted defending Calder Cup champion Abbotsford on Saturday (Nov. 15) as part of Military Appreciation Night. The Canucks were off to a dismal start in 2025-26 with a 3-9-0-2 record, 1-7-0-2 in their last 10 games, and the loss to the Gulls compounded the disappointing start.

The Canucks’ lackings came into focus early on in the game as Bailey scored an unassisted shorthanded goal at 4:53.

The Gulls hit the post at 9:48 to deny themselves a 2-0 lead. The Gulls did make it 2-0 on the scoreboard at 11:06 as Judd Caulfield walked in and deposited the puck behind Canucks goaltender Ty Young. Yegor Sidorov (his fifth of the season) and Tyson Hinds (his first of the season) collected the assists. The goal was Caulfield’s fifth of the season.

The Gulls weren’t finished dismantling the last place Canucks as Caulfield made it 3-0 at 16:22 with his second goal of the game, sixth goal of the season and ninth point of the season. Nathan Gaucher and Nikolas Brouillard assisted on the play. The assist was Gaucher’s first of the season while Brouillard picked up his fifth assist.

The Gulls out-shot the Canucks 11-5 in the second period and added a goal at 2:05 for a 4-0 lead. Carpenter tallied his third goal of the season off a pass from Hinds, his second assist of the game.

The Gulls led 19-14 in shots through two periods and had killed all four man-disadvantages.

The hosts made it 5-0 at 6:37 of the third period courtesy of Colanglo’s second goal of the season, assisted by Matthew Phillips and Brouillard. The assist was Phillips’ team-leading 11^th of the season while Brouillard picked up his sixth assist of the new campaign.

Prior to that the Gulls killed off back-to-back Abbotsford power plays.

The Gulls went on a two-man advantage at 10:09 and wasted no time in cashing in on the first penalty at 10:26 from Pastujov (third goal of the season), Washe (sixth assist of the season) and Phillips (12^th assist of the season).

6-0 San Diego.

It marked the third time this season the Gulls had hit that magic number, including the third time in their last four games, all wins.

Young ventured too far out and Bailey banked the puck into the open space behind him for the Gulls; seventh goal of the night. Bailey’s second goal of the game was assisted by Mysak and McKeown at 14:11.

The Gulls were merciless in notching their highest goal output of the season.

With 30 seconds left, it was almost 8-0 as the puck slid just wide of the post. Fans were on their feet as the final horn sounded.

Final shots were 30-17 — 11-3 in the third period to prevent any comeback by the Canucks.

Husso picked up his sixth win of the season, third shutout.

The hosts swept the three stars of the game. Husso was the first star with a 17-save shutout. Caulfield was the second star with two goals. Bailey was the third star with two goals.

The Gulls, who improved to 6-4-3, finished 1-for-5 on the power play while the Canadian visitors were 0-for-6.

Husso improved to 6-4-1 on the season.

“Just got to keep building from this,” Husso noted. “I feel like, for us, it’s like every game is a new game. Whoever we face, we don’t worry too much about them. We’ll worry about our own stuff. We’re like 13 to 14 games down now in the season, so when we take care of our own game, we’ll be in a good spot every night.

“ It’s those little things we do night in, night out and just having fun at the same time. We played the last few games like we’ll win a lot of hockey games. Just have fun, enjoy, and get better.

“All year long, we’re going to be fighting for playoffs, that’s ultimately what we want,” Brouillard said. “There are a couple teams that are close in the standings right now, so all of these games are really important. I thought yesterday (against Bakersfield) we were lucky to win the game, because I don’t think we put our best effort in. There are some games I thought at the beginning of the season where we lost, and we should have won. Yesterday it was the contrary, we probably should have lost that one, but we found the way. So, we just wanted to have a real solid effort tonight and kind of bounce back even though we won yesterday.”

“That’s the response we were looking for,” the San Diego bench boss noted. “We’re extremely pleased about the magic that we were able to pull off and getting the result on Friday night was a big deal. We just know that we’ve got more to offer as a team and I thought we showed that today.

“We’ve been one of the top teams in the American League the whole year as far as generating scoring chances and shots in the slots and stuff like that. So eventually you’re going to get rewarded. It’s happening for us right now. We just got to keep our foot in the gas with it.”

Fish wrap
The Barracuda had not lost since Halloween (5-0-1-1) and obviously presented a problem for the Gulls in closing out the homestand on Wednesday night in front of 4,857 spectators. San Jose’s OT win moved the Cuds into a tie with Calgary for second place in the Pacific Division standings.

The Gulls led early in the midweek matchup, 1-10, on a goal by Solberg, his first of the season, at the 1:07 mark from Phillips and Washe. Phillips picked up his team-leading 13^th assist, Washe his seventh helper to extend his point streak to seven games (four goals, five assists).

But the hosts found themselves playing catch-up thereafter.

Colin White scored his fifth goal of the season at 7:58 and Oliver Wahlstrom netted his second goal of the season at 17:48 to stake San Jose to a 2-1 lead at the end of one period despite being outshot 7-6

Bailey scored for the third consecutive game to tie the score at 2:30 into the second period, his fifth goal over that span and eighth goal in eight games. Mysak and Pastujov supplied the assists.

But the Cuda popped out of the water with back-to-back goals 1:11 apart by Ethan Cardwell (15:09) and Quinten Musty (16:20) to zip in front 4-2. Cardwell notched his third goal of the season while Musty recorded his fourth.

The Gulls got to show their fans what they are made of.

Pastujov made it a 4-3 game with a power play goal 0:39 into third period. Carpenter and Sidorov were awarded the assists. Pastujov extended his point streak to four games (two goals, four assists)

The Gulls — riding the momentum of an 11-4 edge in shots in the period — leveled the score at 4-4 on Caulfield’s seventh goal of the season at 13:50, set up by Solberg and Sidorov.

But the visitors gained control of the puck soon into overtime and didn’t let go until Musty, a first-round pick by the parent San Jose Sharks in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft (26^th overall), scored his second goal of the game 2:08 into the extra period. The game-winner was assisted by Vincent Iorio and Filip Bystedt.

The Cuda (8-5-1-1) took the only shot recorded in the overtime period as the Gulls (6-4-4) rebounded from an 18-15 shot deficit through two periods to finish with a 26-23 edge in the contest, including the OT session.

Husso stopped 18 of 23 San Jose shots while winning netminder Gabriel Carriere stopped 22 of 26 San Diego shot.

On a negative note, the Gulls dropped to 1-4 in overtime games this season.

“We forced overtime, which was nice, but it was unfortunate we couldn’t get the two points,” Pastujov said. “Three-on-three (in the overtime format), it happens so fast, so it’s really a coin flip honestly.  Obviously, 1-4 is not good enough. Those are going to be big points come playoff time. We’ll certainly work on it and look to improve that here.

“That’s huge to come out of a game like that, where we know we weren’t our best, but still come out with a point and to give ourselves a chance at two was really big for our group. If there’s anything to take away from this game, it’s that we did get a point. I believe we have points in eight out of our last nine games, something like that. So, we’re playing in a lot of tight games and we should look to come out on top of ones like this.”

“You can’t start too much faster than we did, and then the way that we finished as far as being able to claw back down two goals,” McIlvane said. “The space in between that leaves room for improvement, which we’re really excited about looking at and taking a real honest look at. But you know what, to be able to come back from down two and get a point, we’re obviously looking for the next one in overtime, but there’s something positive in that.”

With nine of 10 teams in division owning 0500 or better records, eight with winning records, currently creating a logjam for movement up the standings.

The loss left the Gulls in seventh place with 16 points — one standing point behind three teams above them (Henderson, Ontario and Bakersfield), two points behind Calgary and San Jose, even with Coachella Valley and two points ahead of Tucson.