Gulls Beat Canucks 4-1 Thanks to Harkins' Three Point Night

Oct 26, 2024

By Austin Rush/SanDiegoGulls.com

The San Diego Gulls take care of the Abbotsford Canucks 4-1 tonight behind Jansen Harkins three-point night.

San Diego got the scoring started first for the second night in a row when forward Sam Colangelo buried a Harkins rebound out front of the Canucks cage, 12:54 into the game.

Leading 1-0 after the opening 20 minutes, the Gulls added their final three goals of the night in the second period. Defenseman Roland McKeown corralled a loose puck in the high slot and blasted home his second goal of the season with 7:12 remaining in the middle frame. The lamp lighter was assisted by Carson Meyer and Yegor Sidorov. Sidorov improves his point streak to four games with the helper. On a 5-on-3 power play and with 69 seconds remaining in the period, Harkins one-timed home his first of two goals tonight from the atop the right side circle. Meyer and Gulls captain Ryan Carpenter assisted on the Harkins goal. 1:02 later, Harkins flew into the offensive, received a drop pass from forward Jan Mysak and lasered another power play goal by Canucks netminder Nikita Tolopilo from the left circle. McKeown tallied the secondary. Harkins’ two power play goals are the first time in his AHL he has scored multiple power play goals in one game.

"It feels great. I mean, that's what I got to do for this team, is producing and be someone that we can lean on for offense," Harkins said on his three-point performance. "And obviously just disappointing when we come up short yesterday and just wanted to have a good outing and just work."

Abbotsford’s lone goal of the evening came on a penalty shot by Chase Wouters with 9:28 to play in regulation. It’s the first penalty shot allowed by Oscar Dansk in his AHL career (2-for-3). Dansk stopped 29 of the 30 shots he faced this evening to secure his first win of the campaign and in a Gulls sweater.

"We know her a lot better team than what we showed on the ice last night," assistant coach Dave Barr said. "Abbotsford played a very good game, made it really hard to play against them. They worked hard, they outworked us so that was something that was very important to our coaching stuff. Matt McIlvane wanted to make sure that we come into tonight's game, we were going to be very competitive and we raised the bar quite a bit in that department and we had some big goals and we had a couple of big power play goals, a couple of PKs that were really important, especially near the end. So that was a great way. It's a good feeling. It's a way more fun to win than to lose."

The Gulls return to competition next Tuesday and Thursday against the Pacific Division leading Calgary Wranglers to close out this four-game Canadian road trip.