Gulls take three points from archrival Reign

Have the San Diego Gulls started to put it together earlier than usual? Late season bursts that seem to fall short of making the Calder Cup playoff cut have been spotlighted the last few seasons. But the Gulls seem to be making inroads in the first month of the season this year.

The NHL Anaheim Ducks’ top developmental affiliate is on a points trek to start the 2025-26 American Hockey League campaign by recording 10 out of 12 possible standings points in their last six games.

The Gulls made it three consecutive games with points in the bag following a 6-3 win in Henderson on Nov. 5 (two points), a 6-4 home ice win over the arch rival Ontario Reign on Friday, Nov. 7 (two points), and a 4-3 overtime loss in a return engagement on the Reign’s home ice on Saturday, Nov. 8 (one point).

That’s five points in three games, including three points in two games in the home-and-home series against Ontario, one of the AHL’s top defensive teams.

The Gulls’ recent turnaround included back-to-back six-goal outbursts to mark a high-water mark for goals scored in a game this season. San Diego, now braced with a 4-4-3 record, has now scored wins against four Pacific Division opponents to face off the new season: Coachella Valley (one win, one overtime loss), Henderson (one win, two losses, one overtime loss), San Jose (one win) and Ontario (one win, one overtime loss). The Gulls remain 0-2 against the division leading Colorado Eagles.

The Gulls hope to take that new-found momentum into this weekend’s home series against the Bakersfield Condors on Friday, Nov. 14, and the defending Calder Cup champion Abbotsford Canucks on Saturday, Nov. 15.

San Diego completes a three-game homestand with a rematch against San Jose on Wednesday, Nov. 19.

Battled tested

The Gulls snapped Henderson’s seven-game winning streak to jump-start their three-game points spree, the team’s first win over the Silver Knights in four meetings this season.

The SoCal visitors raced to a 3-0 start in the first period as Nikolas Brouillard scored his first goal of the season, defenseman Tristan Luneau potted his second goal of the season and Sasha Pastujov netted his second goal of the season as well. The Nevada team rallied with two goals to end the frame but Justin Bailey countered with the lone goal in the second period to push the visitors’ lead to 4-2.

The Gulls took care of business with two goals in the third period — one each by Yegor Sidorov and Nico Myatovic. Sidorov concluded a three-point night with a goal and two assists to extend his points streak to five games. Brouillard (one goal, two assists) also logged three points in the road victory.

Pastujov (one goal, one assist), Phillips (two assists) and Jan Mysak (two assists) each recorded two points. In the process, Phillips extended his points streak to four games.

Goaltender Ville Husso was once again the steadying force on defense with 18 saves.

There were more personal notes set in the first encounter with the Reign: Judd Caulfield scored a shorthanded goal and collected three assists for a four-point evening to set a new AHL single-game high.

Tim Washe picked up three points (two goals, one assist) to run his points streak to three games (two goals, three assists) and, in the process, move into the team lead with five goals and second on the team with 10 points.

Brouillard recorded an assist for this fourth point in two games (one goal, three assists) to move three points shy of recording 100 points in his Gulls career.

The hosts built a 3-1 lead through two periods and maintained the edge as both teams lit the lamp three times in the third period. Ontario was frustrated with two power play goals on eight man-advantage opportunities.

Bailey scored a goal in his second consecutive game, his third in four games.

Nathan Gaucher scored his first goal of the season while captain Ryan Carpenter chalked up his third assist of the season and Stian Solberg collected his first point of the season on an assist.

Husso, who ranks second in the AHL with 220 saves, stopped a season-high 41 shots to record back-to-back victories and log his fourth win of the season. He was huge between the pipes as the Reign piled up a 45-32 edge in shots for the game.

There was much to celebrate in front of 7,289 fans. Caulfield was voted the game’s first star, Washe was the second star and Myatovic was the third star as the Gulls swept the three-star awards.

“It’s an emotional game,” San Diego head coach Matt McIlvane said in regard to the teams’ ongoing rivalry. “I think that both teams are fully invested in that one, and there’s always something a little special when San Diego plays Ontario. That was certainly part of it. Then you want to go out, and you want to go demonstrate that emotion in a controlled fashion with extreme discipline and structure. Today, we took way too many penalties. We put our kill to the test way too much, and our goalie had to be great in order for us to seal victory. Fortunately, we were able to score and out-score our penalties that we took. We’ll take the win, but we know this isn’t a formula for sustainable success.

“Our group is maturing slowly. If you go back and reference last year, a couple years, there’s guys that are in year three that now have a couple American League seasons under their belt. We’ve been in tight games, they’ve experienced winning, but there’s some element of maturity to be able to come away with the win and the points. I think a lot of that has to do with our goalie (Husso) We’ll take that every day of the week, but we know there’s some stuff to clean up.

“That was a really fun game,” Caulfield said. “Obviously, we thought we gave up too many chances. Husso stood in there heavy for us and made a lot of big stops. So, we got to help our goalies out a little bit more. But yeah, it was good game. Good to see the offense rolling.

“It was nice, the resilience we had out there. It’s easy to get down after they score right after us, but we stuck with it, and we were able to fight back and get some goals going for us, too, and just defend our lead.”

The Toyota Center was rocking the next night with 9,094 fans, undoubtedly some making the trip north from San Diego.

This time, the Gulls finished with more shots, 32-21, including a 29-20 edge in regulation, as the Reign earned the extra point with the overtime goal.

The visitors battled back from a 3-0 deficit with the final three goals of regulation: one each by Mysak, Noah Warren and Washe. Phillips, Carpenter, Pastujov and Roland McKeown each picked up assists while Calle Clang (nine saves on 12 shots) and Husso (eight saves on nine shots) split time in the cage.

Warren netted his first AHL goal and fourth point of the season while Washe talied his third goal in two games, knotting the score with 1:31 remaining in the third period.

Mysak’s goal was his second of the season while Phillips registered his 10th assist to push his team-leading points mark to 13 (three goals, 10 assists).

Husso came in relief of Clang in the second period and stopped his sixth penalty shot in his AHL career while denying Ontario’s Glenn Gawdin.

The Gulls out-shot the Reign 3-1 in overtime but Ontario’s Kyle Burroughs picked up his first goal of the season at the 1:59 mark to send the home crowd home happy.

“We have grit,” Warren said after the game. “We’re a resilient team. We’re never going to back down, and I think we proved it today. We came back, we clawed back, it sucks that we didn’t get the point in overtime, but we’ll be better next time.

Warren said he felt energized by his first goal of the season.

“It feels great. I got more energy off that. Team got more energy off that. Opportunity came and I took my shot.”

The Gulls are 3-1-3 since opening the season 1-3-1. But find themselves in a tight squeeze with 11 standings points — one point behind Bakersfield and Tucson, both with 5-5-2 marks and 12 points, two points behind San Jose (6-5-1 with 13 points), three points behind Coachella Valley (6-4-2) and Calgary (6-5-2), both with 14 points, and four points behind Henderson (7-4-1) with 15 points.

Nine of the division’s 10 teams boast 0.500 or better records to comprise a very competitive field. Abbotsford brings up the rear with a 2-9-0-2 record and four points — five points behind San Diego.

Colorado tops the division with an 11-2-0-1 record and 23 points, followed by Ontario, which has now moved into second place in the standings with an 8-4-1 record and 17 points.

The Providence Bruins lead the Atlantic Division with an 11-1 record while the Grand Rapids Griffins lead the Central Division with nine wins and one shootout loss for 19 points. The Syracuse Crunch at 9-4 with 18 points leads the North Division.

The Eagles are 6-0-0-1 in their last seven games and 8-1-0-1 in their last 10 games. Ontario and Henderson are both 7-3 in their last 10 games while Coachella Valley is 6-2-2 and Calgary is 5-3-1.

“Not the start (of the season) we hoped for.” Warren said. “We got really good players that came back from last year and we’re a really good team. Tough schedule this week. We’re going to have good time to rest and practice for next week and we’ll be ready.”

Military Appreciation

The Gulls hosted more than 50 children from military families at the Armed Services YMCA for a street hockey clinic Wednesday night. Gulls’ forwards Travis Howe, Owen Lindmark and Matthew Phillips helped coach the clinic to teach them some hockey fundamentals. At the conclusion of the event, the Gulls announced every participant and their families would be getting tickets to Saturday night’s Military Appreciation game against the Abbotsford Canucks.

This Saturday’s Military Appreciation celebration will pay tribute to San Diego’s military members and their families, as well as raise awareness and funds that will be donated to the Armed Services YMCA. The Gulls Community Relations Department will donate more than 1,200 tickets for the game to local veterans, service members and other military support organizations, bringing the Gulls’ donation total to over 25,000 tickets all-time for these specific games.