Ontario Reign: Four Takeaways From 5-1 Loss to Henderson

Lack of discipline and finish doomed the Ontario Reign in their Sunday afternoon tilt in a 5-1 home loss to the Henderson Silver Knights.

Goal Breakdown

First period:

HSK: PP Gage Quinney (3), ASST: Calen Addison (3), Mason Morelli (2)

ONT: Aatu Jamsen (1), ASST: Joe Hicketts (3), Jacob Doty (1)

Second period:

HSK: PP Tanner Laczynski (3), ASST: Mason Morelli (3), Calen Addison (4)

HSK: Raphael Lavoie (1), ASST: Robert Hagg (4), Matyas Sapovaliv (1)

HSK: PP Gage Quinney (4), ASST: Calen Addison (5)

Third period:

HSK: Mason Morelli (1), ASST: Tanner Laczynski (4), Robert Hagg (5)

Stats

Goals:

HSK: 5

ONT: 1

Shots:

HSK: 22

ONT: 32

Power plays:

HSK: 3/9

ONT: 0/3

Here are the four takeaways from Sunday’s 5-1 defeat:

Jamsen records his first professional goal in North America

There wasn’t much good for the Reign in this game. However, we’ll start with the good first, which was only one play. After giving up the first goal for the fourth time in five games and four penalties committed, the Reign answered back late in the period to pull even and end the opening frame tied for the first time this young season.

After Samuel Helenius won an offensive zone faceoff, Joe Hicketts’ shot from the right point got blocked and the puck went right toward Aatu Jamsen, who quickly put the puck into an open net past Akira Schmid. The goal was Jamsen’s first professional goal in North America.

Jamsen was in the lineup for the second straight game and showed moments of both learning and good. In the last game, Jamsen drew a penalty while driving to the net, but also passed up a shooting opportunity on a 3-on-1 chance.

He didn’t pass up that shooting opportunity yesterday. 

It’ll be a work in progress as the 22-year-old forward continues to get acclimated to the style of play in North America and understands he won’t be able won’t have as much time and space to make plays as he did in Liiga.

Here is what head coach Marco Sturm had to say about Jamsen after the game:

“He did it right again today. He can definitely play offense, and there’s just a lot of things he still needs to learn, but I didn’t mind him the last few days.” – Sturm on Jamsen’s play the last two games.

Lineup tweaks

Sturm made multiple lineup tweaks for this game. When you’re 1-3-0 and need a spark, often a change is needed. While the result wasn’t what the bench boss was looking for there was one noticeable change. Sturm moved Francesco Pinelli to 2C and Helenius to 4C. They swapped spots.

Why the switch after four games?

Sturm mentioned in his postgame availability that he wanted Helenius to get into the “grinding game again” and Pinelli to “get more minutes.”

While it wasn’t the best for either center, I 100% agree with Sturm to make the change, after all, I mentioned a week ago that Pinelli should be in the top nine and Helenius be at the 4C due to Pinelli’s skill and Helenius being projected as possible 4C NHL player.

Pinelli needs to play with shooters because of his ability to play make, even though the results won’t show it through five games, and skating east to west should see him in the top nine in the future for his development. As for Helenius, like Sturm mentioned, needs to be a grinder, physical, and use his size since his skillset is inferior to Pinelli’s. 

We’ll see if Sturm keeps them in the same spot on Friday.

Lack of discipline

If you watched the Kings take undisciplined penalties the other day and missed yesterday’s Reign game, the latter one-upped the former. The Reign committed nine minor infractions (not counting the coincidental minor penalty and Charles Hudon receiving a roughing and ten-minute misconduct at the end of the game) that led to three power-play goals for the Silver Knights. Six of those penalties were stick infractions. Undisciplined and careless with the stick hurt the Reign and they paid for it.

Bad game all around

We already know the Reign were undisciplined, but after a solid first ten minutes, the last 50 minutes were bad for the Reign. You name it: power play, penalty kill, defense, goaltending, and lack of scoring. Your best players need to be your best, which hasn’t been the case for the Reign. 

Hudon, Samuel Fagemo, Glenn Gawdin, and Jeff Malott, all of who scored at least 20 goals a season ago, have combined for zero goals and two assists (Malott and Gawdin) in eight games. The power play is 1-for-24 (4.2%) and has looked out of sorts. Sure, the lack of playmaking with the departure of former captain TJ Tynan and Alex Turcotte, Akil Thomas, and Brandt Clarke up in the NHL hurts, but those stats are unacceptable.

Hicketts mentioned that it’s going to take a “greasy one (goal)” and “a team effort” to get out of this rut in his postgame availability, and those might be the only ways that’ll get the Reign out of this funk and turn it around at this point.

NOTES:

*Jakub Dvorak, Malott, and Pinelli recorded two penalties each.

*Sturm mentioned Erik Portillo has been sick for the past week and that was the reason why he hasn’t suited up for the last three games.

*Henderson’s top line of Morelli, Laczynski, and Quinney combined for seven points in all situations.

*Five players had a multi-point game for Henderson.

*The Reign have a -14 goal differential (8-22). That’s the worst start in five games since they entered the AHL in 2015.

*Pheonix Copley didn’t have his best game tracking the puck, making 17 saves on 22 shots faced, and had trouble freezing the puck on multiple occasions. It was his fourth game of the year (three in the AHL and one in the NHL).

UP NEXT: The Reign are off the next four days before hitting the road to take on the Silver Knights on Friday, November 1st. That game can be seen on FloHockey TV at 7 PM PT.

Video courtesy of the Ontario Reign YouTube channel

Featured image credit: Mike Zitek/Ontario Reign

Tags:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *