Ontario Reign: Three Takeaways From 3-1 Loss to San Jose

The Ontario Reign saw their four-game win streak snapped with a 3-1 loss to the San Jose Barracuda on Saturday night.

Goal Breakdown

First period: 

None

Second period: 

SJ: Thomas Bordeleau (11), ASST: Ethan Cardwell (27), Andrew Poturalski (30)

Third period:

SJ: Ethan Cardwell (7), ASST: None

SJ: Mitchell Russell (1), ASST: Rem Pitlick (2)

ONT: PP Martin Chromiak (11), ASST: Reilly Walsh (20), Charles Hudon (30)

Stats

Goals:

SJ: 3

ONT: 1

Shots: 

SJ: 24

ONT: 24

Power plays: 

SJ: 0/3

ONT: 1/4

Here are the three takeaways from Saturday night’s 3-1 defeat:

Barracuda get their revenge

The Reign came out strong and scored six goals in Wednesday’s victory over the Barracuda. The same two teams met again last night, and after getting waxed on their home ice for 40 minutes on Wednesday, the Barracuda gave a much better effort. Despite being outshot 8-0 nearly 14 minutes into the contest and 12-7 in the opening frame, San Jose played a solid final 46 minutes of hockey by dictating the pace and outshooting the Reign 17-12.

In addition to that, they also capitalized on the Reign’s mistakes. Their first goal happened on a failed zone exit by the Reign and strong play on the boards to keep the puck in, while their third goal happened due to a brutal Aatu Jamsen turnover on a cross-ice pass in the Reign zone. Despite a good start, the Reign didn’t have their best game and San Jose got a much-needed victory with a great effort. Gabriel Carriere played in his eighth career AHL game and was spectacular in net making 23 saves.

Every team is due for one of those and after going 6-1-1-0 in their last eight games, a clunker finally happened for the Reign. They’ll have a quick turnaround with first place on the line against the division-leading Calgary Wranglers tonight.

Injury updates

No team is healthy at this time of year. Right now the Reign are being bitten by the injury bug and it’s piling up. Heading to Calgary last week, the Reign didn’t have Samuel Fagemo and Caleb Jones available for either game. They lost Cole Krygier on Monday to a lower-body injury and have now lost two more players: Erik Portillo and Angus Booth.

“Ports [Portillo] will be out. I’m not sure how long. He’s not skating yet, so I don’t expect him [being back] anytime soon,” Marco Sturm said after the game. The Reign have Dryden McKay on the roster who has been the backup these past two games. Depending on how long Portillo is out, he could get his fair share of starts.

Booth was slated to start this game on the second pair with Luke Rowe. However, after warm-ups, he wasn’t available and was replaced by Dru Krebs.

“He tweaked something in warm-ups. We’ll see how he is tomorrow,” Sturm said. Booth has been an important defenseman who has gained trust and garnered praise from Sturm throughout the season. Losing him on the backend for some time to an already depleted defensive core would be a huge loss for Ontario.

However, with injuries comes opportunity. One player who could see an elevated role on the backend is Jakub Dvořák. The 19-year-old defenseman hasn’t played in every game as the organization has been very patient with his development, but as Sturm said after the game, now is a ‘good chance’ for him to play an important role if players on the backend are out for an extended amount of time.

A race to the finish line

The standings are tight as we get near the end. The Reign had a chance to take over the first seed in the division with two games in hand on the Calgary Wranglers but were denied. Both teams lost to San Jose and Coachella Valley, respectively, creating chaos for home-ice advantage in the top four spots in the division. While Ontario and Calgary will fight for the division lead this evening, the Colorado Eagles are tied with them (63 points) and currently sit at the top of the division due to having more regulation wins. The Coachella Valley Firebirds (fourth place) are right on the heels of those three teams with 62 points. The standings in the Pacific Division are always shifting and this is setting up for a great finish. Every win and point will be valuable in these final two months for every team in the race for a playoff spot or having home-ice advantage in the playoffs.

NOTES:

*The Reign are 7-11-1-0 when trailing after two periods of play.

*Martin Chromiak scored a power-play goal for the third straight game. He’s been on the first power-play unit since Fagemo’s injury.

*Charles Hudon extended his point streak to eight games with an assist on Chromiak’s goal.

*Pheonix Copley made 21 saves in the loss.

*Dru Krebs made his AHL debut, recorded one shot on goal, and had a -1 rating.

UP NEXT: The Ontario Reign are back in action tonight against the Calgary Wranglers with first place in the division on the line. It’s also Monarchs Night! The game starts at 5 PM PST and can be seen on FloHockey and KCAL+ (Channel 9.6). You can also listen to the game on the ESPN LA app and ontarioreign.com/radio.

Featured image credit: Jon Huerta/Ontario Reign

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