Ontario Reign vs. San Jose Barracuda Series Preview + Prediction

The stage is set, and the Ontario Reign will battle the San Jose Barracuda in their best-of-three first-round matchup.

The Reign went 5-3-0-0 against the Barracuda in the eight-game season series. This will be the second playoff meeting between the two teams since the Pacific Division’s inaugural season in 2015-16, when the Reign disposed of the Barracuda in four games (best-of-five) in the opening round. That was then. It’s a different time now, as the rosters have a different makeup.

Today, I will give a preview of the series and a prediction at the end of it.

Tale of the tape

Goals per game:

SJ: 3.39 (T-2nd)

ONT: 3.13 (T-13th)

Goals against per game:

SJ: 3.12 (22nd)

ONT: 2.88 (12th)

Shots on goal per game:

SJ: 32.2 (1st)

ONT: 31.0 (T-5th)

Shots against per game:

SJ: 31.6 (30th)

ONT: 26.3 (3rd)

Save percentage: 

SJ: .905 (T-14th)

ONT: .899 (T-20th)

Power play: 

SJ: 24.0% (1st)

ONT: 17.3% (24th)

Penalty kill: 

SJ: 82.5% (T-15th)

ONT: 83.5% (10th)

Season-leading scorers

SJ: Andrew Poturalski – 30 goals, 43 assists, 73 points in 59 games

ONT: Charles Hudon – 20 goals, 44 assists, 64 points in 67 games

Season series leading scorers

SJ: Andrew Poturalski – 1 goal, 5 assists, 6 points in 5 games; Filip Bystedt – 1 goal, 5 assists, 6 points in 6 games

ONT: Charles Hudon – 1 goal, 6 assists, 7 points in 8 games; Martin Chromiak – 5 goals, 2 assists, 7 points in 8 games

Schedule

G1: Thursday, April 24th, @ Crpyto.com Arena, 7 PM PST

G2: Saturday, April 26th, @ Crpyto.com Arena, 6 PM PST

*G3: Monday, April 28th, @ Toyota Arena, 7 PM PST (if necessary)

Series preview:

Status of key players

Both Charles Hudon and Angus Booth were out of the Reign lineup in the season finale after not finishing the game before against the San Diego Gulls. There hasn’t been an update on their availability for game one, so we’ll find out come warm-ups. Following Saturday’s game, head coach Marco Sturm was ‘hopeful’ those two could be available for game one, but also expressed confidence in his roster, regardless of who is in the lineup or not.

Things are looking a bit more uncertain on the San Jose side. According to Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now, both Andrew Poturalski—San Jose’s and the AHL’s leading scorer—and Thomas Bordeleau are dealing with injuries and did not travel with the team on Wednesday. However, there remains a possibility that Bordeleau could join the team later in Southern California, per Peng, after the Barracuda’s practice yesterday.

The possibility of having Bordeleau join at some point is somewhat of a boost, but not having Poturalski at all for the short series would be a huge loss for San Jose.

Game one will be huge

In a short series like this, getting off to a good start in game one will be crucial for both sides. Since the AHL adopted the 23-playoff format in 2022, there have been 21 best-of-three opening round series (2022-24). The team that was victorious in game one won 19 of those series (90.5%  success rate). The winner of game one puts the losing team on the brink of elimination for game two.

Limiting the Barracuda’s high-flying offense

San Jose holds a clear edge in this department. They have youth, speed, skill, and love offense. They led the league in shots on goal per game (32.2) and were tied for second with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in goals per game (3.39), reflecting their offensive-first style. The Reign weren’t bad themselves either, finishing in a tie for fifth in shots on goal per game (31.0) and a tie for 13th in goals per game (3.13).

In the eight-game season series, the Barracuda scored 25 goals in regulation (3.13 per game) to the Reign’s 23 (2.88 per game). For the Reign to win this series, they can’t afford to engage in the run-and-gun game that San Jose plays. That’s not the style they want to play.

Goaltending matchup

The Reign goaltending situation remains up in the air. Sturm said he expected Pheonix Copley to start game one in his postgame availability after the Reign’s season finale loss to Abbotsford on Saturday, but less than 48 hours later, Copley was called up to the Kings on an emergency basis, leaving the door open for Carter George to be the game one starter. George would get called up on Wednesday, and Copley would be loaned back to the Reign. Who knows if the two will swap spots again on Thursday morning. If no move is made, I expect Sturm to rely on Copley as he has for the past two months since Erik Portillo has been unavailable due to an injury.. The veteran netminder started 21 of the Reign’s final 26 games in that stretch, and has posted an .893 save percentage against the Barracuda this year. They have shown no issues solving him

For the Barracuda side, I would expect Yaroslav Askarov to be tabbed as their game one starter. Askarov, San Jose’s top goalie prospect, had a solid season in his first year with the Barracuda after being acquired in a trade with the Nashville Predators in the summer. However, post-AHL all-star break, Askarov has made eight starts and surrendered four or more goals in half of them. He also missed time with an injury in that time frame. When watching clips of Askarov’s last two starts against the Reign, something caught my attention. The Reign scored seven times on him, and five of those goals went glove side (six if you count a redirection goal). Perhaps the Reign found a weakness they can exploit.

Special teams, keep the game 5v5

This is the biggest one. San Jose finished with the league’s best power play with a success rate of 24.0% and tormented the Reign’s penalty kill squad by going 10-for-33 (30.3%), despite the latter finishing with the 10th-ranked penalty kill (83.5%). As mentioned above, the Barracuda have plenty of skill in the lineup, and those power-play numbers back it up. The Reign’s power play was abysmal all season and went 5-for-36 (13.9%) in eight games against the Barracuda’s 16th-ranked penalty kill.

The task for the Reign is simple: stay out of the box and keep the game at five-on-five. While the Barracuda have the advantage in the special-teams department, the Reign had the advantage at five-on-five play in the season series. When crunching the numbers together from the season series, I found an interesting stat from both sides to prove that point. San Jose scored 25 goals against the Reign. 40% of those goals came on the power play, and 44% came during five-on-five. For the Reign, they scored 23 goals (not counting the shootout goal). 21.7% of their goals came on the power play, and 69.7% were during five-on-five play.

If the Reign can limit the Barracuda’s power-play opportunities and keep the game at five-on-five, their chances of winning the series should bode well.

Potential x-factors

Martin Chromiak – Chromiak was a healthy scratch in seven of the Reign’s eight playoff games. He struggled for most of the season but found a rhythm being placed on the top line with Charles Hudon and Glenn Gawdin for the final month of the season. He finished the season with 15 pts (7 G, 8 A) in 16 games. He’ll need to keep that up, giving the Reign another scoring option in the top six.

Filip Bystedt – Bystedt will probably see a bigger role for San Jose with Poturalski’s absence. He was the second-line center in San Jose’s practice before the team departed to Southern California, according to Sheng Peng of the San Jose Hockey News.

Prediction: Despite the Barracuda being young and not having much playoff experience as the Reign, I believe this series will go the full distance, and the Reign will prevail in a close one. Reign in 3.

Featured image credit: Jon Huerta/Ontario Reign

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