Gulls Open 2024 With 5-3 Loss To Silver Knights

Jan 3, 2024

By Nick Aguilera/SanDiegoGulls.com 

The San Diego Gulls dropped their first game of 2024 5-3 to the Henderson Silver Knights Wednesday night at The Dollar Loan Center. 

"5-on-5, I thought we played well," assistant coach Kris Sparre said. "We had enough chances to win the game. It seems like the storyline is we score a goal, and we take a penalty. The other team goes on the power play, and it ended up in our net tonight and it's unfortunate because, you know, for the most part, I thought we had a pretty good game 5-on-5."

Chase De Leo welcomed the Silver Knights to 2024 with a power-play goal a little over two minutes into the game. He is averaging a point per game through 12 games this season (5-7=12). 

Henderson responded with a power-play goal of their own late in the first. Sheldon Rempal put one in from a tough angle to beat Alex Stalock. 

Adam Cracknell put the Silver Knights up in the second after he put the puck off a Gulls skate and past Stalock. 

The Gulls tied it up at 11:34 in the middle frame after Brayden Tracey banked one off Henderson’s goaltender Jesper Vikman for his seventh goal of the season. 

The track meet continued a little over a minute later, though, as Brendan Brisson put the Silver Knights back on top a little over a minute later. 

Jaxsen Wiebe picked a great time for his first professional goal, as he tied the game to open the third. Andrew Agozzino tallied his second assist of the night, his fourth multi-assist effort of the season. Trevor Carrick also picked up a helper, his team-leading 18th of the season. 

"It was exciting obviously," Wiebe said. "[Agozzino] made a really nice pass out front and I was in the right spot and just banged it in. It was exciting to tie the game. Unfortunately, didn’t end up going the right way the rest of the game but it was exciting to get a goal."

"He’s a great kid and you know, he works hard," Sparre added. "He's emotional on the bench after scoring that goal. Really happy for him. I thought he played a good game tonight."

Henderson again answered to reestablish their lead, as Grigori Denisenko scored on the power play, his third goal against the Gulls this season. They then stretched the lead to three with two more unanswered goals to end the night. 

"I mean, we took too many penalties," Sparre said. "I think we took five, a lot of them are stick calls. You know, those are not the penalties that we want to be taking. It shot us in the foot tonight. Like I said, 5-on-5, good hockey game. We’ll get back at it tomorrow."

Josh Lopina established a career-long three-game point streak with an assist. He has 3-2=5 points in that span. Olen Zellweger and Nikita Nesterenko also picked up assists on the night.   

Stalock stopped 27-of-32 shots. 

The Gulls will return to Pechanga Arena San Diego this Friday for the first of back-to-back matchups with the Bakersfield Condors (7 p.m. PST).