Ontario Reign at Tucson Roadrunners

Samuel Fagemo, Sean Durzi, and Vladimir Tkachev lead the Ontario Reign back into the win column with a win in Tucson.

It was point night for a few Ontario Reign players as the team bounced back nicely from Friday night’s loss, beating the Tucson Roadrunners 6-3 on Saturday night. Samuel Fagemo scored a hat trick, Sean Durzi had four points (two goals, two assists) and Vladimir Tkachev picked up three assists to lead Ontario, who improves to 10-1-1 on the season. The Roadrunners fell to 4-5-1.

Garret Sparks made 27 saves in the win while Josef Korenar allowed five goals on 20 shots for Tucson.

Game Recap

Head Coach John Wroblewski mixed a few things up for this one:

The first period started much like Friday night ended: goals and penalties. The teams combined for three goals and five penalties in an eventful first period.

On a 5-on-3 power-play. Tkachev found Durzi, who beat Korenar with a wrister from the right circle:

Less than three minutes later, Fagemo would get on the board with a one-timer from the left circle, set up by Tkachev:

Penalties again would get the better of Ontario. After giving up three-straight power-play goals in the third period on Friday night, they give up a goal on their first kill. This when Ben McCartney put home a Hudson Fasching pass at the back door to cut the lead in half:

At 5-on-5, the first period was an even one with the two teams having the same amount of shot-attempts (10) and high-danger attempts (4).

It didn’t take long for Ontario to regain their two-goal lead when Fagemo tipped in a Durzi point-shot early in the second period:

Tkachev and Durzi would connect again on the power-play, giving the Reign a 4-1 lead just inside the five-minute mark of the second period:

If Friday night just wasn’t the Reign’s night, Saturday sure was. A giveaway in the Tucson end allowed Fagemo an easy look for the hat-trick just past the midway point of the second:

As expected, Tucson wasn’t going to roll over. They got one back late in the period on a seeing-eye wrist shot from defenseman Janis Moser with 2:05 remaining in the period.

The third period was relatively quiet in comparison — save for a couple of minor penalties — but not long after Brett Sutter’s empty-net goal late, it got ugly. With 2:39 to play, Jacob Doty, Austin Wagner, and Travis Barron all received misconducts after a Doty hit on Hudson Elynuik. Then with one second left, Boko Imama threw a late hit which led to a lot more extra-curricular activities, including Sparks getting involved. All told, the two teams combined for 16 third-period penalties — 12 of them coming in the final three minutes.

Shot Attempts

at Tucson Shot Attempts For Shot Attempts Against CORSI CF%
All Strengths 45 51 -6 46.9%
All Strengths HD 18 20 -2 47.37%
5v5 31 31 0 50.0%
5v5 HD 11 10 1 52.4%

Box Score

The full box score can be found here.

Thoughts and Takeaways

  • Tkachev now has assists in every game he’s played in the AHL — nine in total.
  • Fagemo’s first goal was the first in six games for him, breaking out of that mini-slump in a big way.
  • There really aren’t any issues up front for Ontario, but with Gabe Vilardi and Lias Andersson nearing returns in Los Angeles, the Reign are likely to get reinforcements in the way of T.J. Tynan, or perhaps Vilardi himself if the Kings decide to get him some time in the AHL. I also wouldn’t count out Arthur Kaliyev or Rasumus Kupari making their way back down, simply due to the number of bodies in the NHL.
  • Tyler Madden was more involved in this one, collecting two shots on goal and ending his three-game pointless stretch with an assist.
  • Jordan Spence continues to be a dynamic player in the offensive zone. He spends most of his power-play time on the second unit but got a run with the top group as Durzi recovered from a hit. Spence fit in nicely and will run atop power-play in the not-so-distant future. He ended the game with two shots on goal.
  • After struggling on Friday, the Reign penalty kill was much better tonight. They killed off seven of nine infractions and six straight until the chaos at the end of the game led to a 5-on-3 Roadrunners power-play.
  • Ontario was good again with the man-advantage, going 2-for-6. Durzi has been excellent at quarterbacking the top power-play. Of his five goals this season, three are on the power play.
  • With two assists, Frk extended his point streak to seven games, the last six of those have been multi-point efforts.
  • You might want to mark your calendars for the next time these two teams meet — which will be in Ontario on Saturday, December 18th.  The two teams combined for 21 goals and 45 penalties in the two games.

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