Ontario Reign: Regular Season and Playoff Stat Leaders

The AHL season concluded Monday night with the Hershey Bears claiming their 13th Calder Cup in franchise history. With the season officially done, let’s go back and look at some of the scoring numbers at five-on-five, power play, and penalty kill for the Ontario Reign in the 2023-24 regular season and playoffs.

Let’s start with the regular season first:

Five-on-five goals

Leaders: Samuel Fagemo (17), Tyler Madden (12), Akil Thomas (12), Francesco Pinelli (11), and Charles Hudon (8)

Fagemo being first on this list is not surprising at all. When Fagemo rejoined the Reign on November 11th, after being re-claimed by the LA Kings, he scored at a torrid pace early on. Thomas isn’t surprising either. Thomas was a good player in all situations for Ontario. As for Pinelli, he started slow but found his game as the season progressed. I expect him to take on a bigger role as Alex Turcotte and Thomas are expected to be on the Kings next season.

Five-on-five primary assists

Leaders: TJ Tynan (14), Charles Hudon (11), Brandt Clarke (11), Taylor Ward (9), and Alex Turcotte (8)

Tynan leading the list isn’t surprising. Since joining the Reign in 2021, he has been Ontario’s consistent point producer and racks up the assists in all situations except penalty kill. Hudon being second is a little surprising considering he is mainly known for his goal-scoring, primarily on the power play. Clarke and Turcotte being in the top five passed the eye test as the latter was one of Ontario’s best players at five-on-five and the former’s creativity and vision.

Five-on-five points

Leaders: TJ Tynan (28), Samuel Fagemo (25), Charles Hudon (23), Taylor Ward (23), and Brandt Clarke (23)

Ward might be the only surprise here. After struggling in the 2022-23 season, Ward had a big turnaround and was surprisingly one of Ontario’s responsible players at five-on-five. His +/- of -20 to +23 shows the season he had and got rewarded with another one-year contract five days after the Reign were eliminated from the playoffs.

Five-on-five primary points

Leaders: Samuel Fagemo (22), Charles Hudon (19), TJ Tynan (17), Akil Thomas (17), and Brandt Clarke (17)

For those who need a refresher, primary points are goals and primary assists combined. Fagemo, Hudon, Tynan, Thomas, and Clarke were Ontario’s five-on-five primary point leaders. I didn’t think Fagemo would be number one in this category considering a lot of his goals and points seemed to come on the man advantage early on in the season.

Power-play goals

Leaders: Samuel Fagemo (19), Charles Hudon (10), Akil Thomas (5), Alex Turcotte (5), and Martin Chromiak (4)

Fagemo and Hudon coming in at first and second isn’t a shock. Fagemo was Ontario’s number-one option on the power play and often their streaky power play became too predictable. Nevertheless, Hudon did what he was signed to do, which was score on the power play. Thomas from the bumper spot on the first unit potted five goals.

Power-play points

Leaders: Samuel Fagemo (27), Charles Hudon (25), TJ Tynan (23), Brandt Clarke (17), Akil Thomas (16)

All of the Reign’s point leaders on the power play came from the first unit. That shouldn’t be a surprise (it sounds like a broken record me saying that at this point) because they spent about 80-90 seconds on the ice and had more offensive firepower than the second unit. Two years ago, when the Reign had the number-one power play in the AHL, both units were balanced. These last two years have seen unit one be more top-heavy.

Short-handed goals

Leaders: Akil Thomas (2), Tyler Madden (1), Taylor Ward (1), Samuel Helenius (1), Andre Lee (1), Nikita Pavlychev (1)

All these players listed were vital to the Reign’s penalty kill, which wasn’t ranked high due to their struggles at home in the first half of the season. Thomas led the way with two short-handed goals while five other players chipped in with one each. Thomas’ ability to play at five-on-five and both special teams should make him a useful option for the Kings next season.

Short-handed points

Leaders: Akil Thomas (3), Kevin Connauton (1), Steven Santini (1), Tyler Madden (1), Taylor Ward (1), Samuel Helenius (1), Andre Lee (1), Nikita Pavlychev (1)

Again, Thomas led the way in points on the penalty kill for the Reign, while seven other players had one each. The Reign had ten total points short-handed and Thomas accounted for 30% of them.

Let’s move to the playoffs:

Five-on-five playoff goals

Leaders: Andre Lee (4), Tyler Madden (3), Charles Hudon (2), Alex Turcotte (2), and Taylor Ward (2)

Lee leading the pack in five-on-five goals is not something I predicted. I didn’t predict he would score a goal in three straight games either. He was one of those players who got hot at the right time at five-on-five for the Reign by providing depth scoring and finished second on the team with four goals in the playoffs. Madden, who led the Reign with five (not something I thought would happen either), finished with three five-on-five goals.

Five-on-five primary assists

Leaders: Taylor Ward (4), Joe Hicketts (2), Kim Nousiainen (2), Brandt Clarke (2), and Samuel Fagemo (1)

Another player from Ontario’s bottom-six forward group led the way in another five-on-five category. Ward’s solid regular season carried into the playoffs, as he led Ontario with four primary assists at five-on-five. This list is shocking to see, but all regular season and playoffs saw the Reign get contributions throughout the lineup, and these five-on-five primary assist leaders show that.

Five-on-five points

Leaders: Taylor Ward (6), Tyler Madden (5), Alex Turcotte (4), Andre Lee (4), and Brandt Clarke (4)

The Reign’s depth played a factor at five-on-five for the first two rounds of the playoffs. Unfortunately, the depth scoring at five-on-five dried up for the Reign in their series in the third round against the Coachella Valley Firebirds, a team who had plenty of depth themselves. Ward led the way with six five-on-five points for the Reign in the postseason.

Five-on-five primary points

Leaders: Taylor Ward (6), Tyler Madden (4), Andre Lee (4), Alex Turcotte (3), and Charles Hudon (2)

Primary points at five-on-five saw Ward lead the way with six. All of Ward’s points at five-on-five were primary ones. If you look at the two players behind him, Madden and Lee, shows that the Reign depth played a part in their deep playoff run. Unlike last year, if the top players didn’t get it done for Ontario, their depth picked up the slack.

Power-play goals

Leaders: Akil Thomas (2), Samuel Fagemo (1), TJ Tynan (1), Hayden Hodgson (1), and Tyler Madden (1)

The Reign power play was streaky all regular season and didn’t produce much in the playoffs. Thomas led the way with two power-play goals scoring one in the Reign’s opening series against the Bakersfield Condors and one in their series against the Abbotsford Canucks.

Power-play points

Leaders: TJ Tynan (4), Samuel Fagemo (3), Akil Thomas (3), Charles Hudon (2), and Joe Hicketts (1)

Tynan leading the Reign in power-play points in the playoffs isn’t a surprise. The power play runs through him as he looks for the first and second options. Ontario’s top-heavy first power-play unit had most of the point producers on the list, with Hicketts being on the second unit being the only exception.

Short-handed points

Leaders: Joe Hicketts (1), Akil Thomas (1)

The Reign finished the playoffs with an 85.7% successful penalty kill rate in eight games. The penalty kill tallied only one short-handed goal, which came from Joe Hicketts in game one of the opening-round series against the Condors.

NOTE:

*For goalies, Erik Portillo led the Reign in wins, goals-against average, and save percentage in both the regular season and playoffs.

*All states were found the AHL and AHL Tracker websites

Featured image credit: Ontario Reign/Mike Zitek

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