Gulls, Reign Open First Round Series Tonight At Toyota Arena
May 3, 2022By Paige Burnell/SanDiegoGulls.com
Who doesn’t love an underdog?
Well, if the San Diego Gulls have anything to do with it, the Ontario Reign won’t be fans of the underdog by the conclusion of the First Round of the 2022 Calder Cup Playoffs, starting tonight at Toyota Arena (7 p.m. PT; TV: AHL TV; RADIO: Gulls Audio Network).
The Gulls enter the postseason as the seventh and final seed in the Pacific Division and are set to take on the second-place Reign for the third playoff meeting between the two Southern California rivals.
"I think, well not just me, we all think we can beat Ontario and we’re not scared to play them or worried about who they have," Gulls right wing Hunter Drew said. "We have a good lineup and a good crew here that can go deep."
San Diego is 43-27-4-2 overall against the Reign, including a 21-14-1-2 record on the road. This season, the Gulls posted a 3-8-1-0 record and have yet to earn a win in Ontario (0-6-0-0).
The team is ready to change that on the postseason stage.
“Well, there’s no secret that they’re a good team, obviously,” Gulls head coach Joel Bouchard said. "So, it’s just a matter of combination of preparing yourself to do what you have to do and making sure you’re aware of a good team on the other bench and that you have to be task-oriented on what they do because they’re good."
The matchup seemed destined over the final few weeks of the season, as the Stockton Heat ran away with the division title while a cold streak guaranteed the Gulls a seventh-place finish.
"Well, you don’t have much time to turn around, right?" Bouchard said. "I mean the season ended, but we’ve known for a while we’re going to face Ontario. So, obviously there’s stuff that we talked about for a little while. So, there’s no secret there. You have to make sure you’re ready, you have no question, you let your instinct play on the ice."
Instinct guided Drew to a team-leading 6-5=11 points against the Reign this season. The Gulls will look to the right wing, who returned to the team on Apr. 30 after making his National Hockey League debut with the Anaheim Ducks, to continue his strong play against Ontario.
The Gulls will also lean on Alex Limoges, who became the first rookie in Gulls history to lead the team in goals and the second first-year skater to lead the team in scoring (Brandon Montour, 2015-16). The Virginia native finished the regular season with 23-17=40 points, becoming the sixth rookie in team history to reach the 40-point plateau (last: Troy Terry (41) and Sam Steel (41), 2018-19).
The left wing also led all American Hockey League rookies during the regular season with 12 power-play goals, setting the Gulls record for the most power-play goals in a season.
However, this is only half of a special teams battle that could easily determine the fate of the First Round series.
One of the biggest focal points of the series is discipline. Ontario enters the playoffs with a historically great power play, finishing the regular season with the highest-scoring man-advantage unit in AHL history (72-for-262, 27.5%). In addition, the Reign finished the regular season 11-for-42 (26.2%) against the Gulls on the power play.
"Obviously, that’s the hardest part of not just hockey, but any sport, is trying to control your emotions, but also get in their head a little bit," Drew said. "So, you just kind of get in their head, get physical with them and I think for us, that bodes well."
Ontario’s incredible regular season ran through the duo of Martin Frk and T.J. Tynan. Frk finished the regular season tied for second in the AHL in both goals (33) and power-play goals (15). He scored 10 against San Diego, collecting nearly one-third of his production over the season series.
Tynan led the league in power-play assists (46) and assists (84), while finishing the season ranked second in points (14-84=98) in the AHL.
"So, they’ve been really good on the power play and then we had some good moments on the pk (penalty kill) and some moments where we learned the hard way that they were good," Bouchard said. "So, it’s a matter of playing physical, but staying a little bit within the rule of hockey. Playoff is a different style of hockey, though. I think we all know it’s intense, it’s physical. It’s just those undisciplined ones where, you know, emotion gets the best of you that we have to be careful (of). I’m trusting the guys and I’m believing in the process."
The key to slowing down Ontario’s offense – and improving on the penalty kill – is in net, as Lukas Dostal leads the Gulls into the playoffs. He posted an 18-14-3 record with two shutouts in 40 appearances with San Diego this season, finishing with Gulls rookie goaltender records for games played, lowest goals-against average (2.60), minutes played (2,189) and shutouts, and ranking second in saves (1038), save percentage (.916), shots faced (1133) and wins (18).
San Diego enters the First Round matchup with arguably its deepest lineup of the season. In addition to Drew, the Ducks assigned defensemen Trevor Carrick and Simon Benoit as well as right wing Buddy Robinson. The team also received an unexpected boost – prospect Olen Zellweger, who led all Canadian Hockey League defensemen in points this season, joined the team from the Everett Silvertips of the Western Hockey League yesterday.
After a lengthy regular-season series – and two preseason contests – there’s no secrets – and no love lost – between the two teams. According to Drew, the message for the series is simple.
"They have a couple good players I think you just key in on," Drew said. "Obviously, they’re a deep team - they’ve got four lines and three sets of d (defense) that can play. I think we’ve just got to match their speed and play into our strengths instead of theirs."