Ontario Reign: Three Takeaways From 4-1 Loss to Texas

The Ontario Reign saw their three-game winning streak snapped with a 4-1 loss to the Texas Stars on Sunday night.

Goal Breakdown

First period: 

TEX: Artem Shlaine (5), ASST: Cameron Hughes (10), Gavin White (2)

Second period: 

ONT: Cole Guttman (5), ASST: Glenn Gawdin (10)

TEX: PP Artem Shlaine (6), ASST: Cameron Hughes (11), Samu Tuomaala (7)

Third period:

TEX: Kole Lind (4), ASST: None

TEX: EN Matthew Seminoff (4), ASST: Artem Schlaine (3), Michael Karow (4)

Stats

Goals:

TEX: 4

ONT: 1

Shots: 

TEX: 25

ONT: 26

Power plays: 

TEX: 1/3

ONT: 0/3

Here are the three takeaways from Sunday night’s 4-1 defeat:

Timely mistakes lead to loss

The Reign were bailed out for their mistakes multiple times on Friday night by Pheonix Copley, but last night, Texas made them pay. While Ontario had slightly better puck management and offensive zone time than they did on Friday, it didn’t matter.

Three key mistakes proved to be costly and ended up in the back of the Reign’s net.

Glenn Gawdin and Cole Guttman couldn’t connect on a breakout pass, leading to a turnover in the neutral zone, and Artem Schlaine split the defense for a breakaway to put Texas up 1-0 with 5:56 left in the opening period.

The second mistake was after an Andre Lee slashing penalty with 10.6 seconds left in the middle period, leading to Schlaine’s second goal of the game after the Reign lost the faceoff, and nobody was able to pick up Schlaine in front of the net on Cameron Hughes’ backdoor pass.

And finally, Logan Brown’s turnover at the blue line in the offensive zone resulted in Kole Lind’s unassisted breakaway goal to extend Texas’ lead to 3-1 with under five minutes to play.

Fortunately, for the Reign, those mistakes can easily be corrected.

Cole Guttman finds the scoresheet again

I’ve talked about Kenny Connors and Jared Wright having a strong start to their rookie campaigns, but I would feel ashamed if I didn’t mention the recent play of Cole Guttman, who has over 100 AHL games of experience under his belt.

Guttman isn’t a King prospect, but is a former Jr. King and is quietly starting to rack up points that eluded him earlier in the season. Guttman, 26, played well to start the year, but wasn’t getting on the scoresheet; now those results are beginning to show.

Guttman scored the only Reign goal in the game, his fifth of the year, and extended his goal-scoring streak to three games and now has eight points (4 G, 4 A) in his last eight games. A smooth and crafty playmaker, Guttman’s offensive output is starting to become a key factor in the Reign offense.

Both goalies play well

The score won’t indicate how close this game actually was with Texas’ two late third-period goals. Copley (Ontario) and Arno Tiefensee (Texas) both had good games for their respective clubs. Copley stopped 21 of 24 shots in a hard-luck loss. Tiefensee, on the other hand, was making his AHL debut and turned aside 25 of 26 shots for his first AHL victory. The 23-year-old rookie had a strong game in net for Texas. Although the quality of chances wasn’t there for the Reign, any time you get a win in your AHL or NHL debut, it’s always a great feeling.

NOTES:

*Jakub Dvořák was inserted back into the lineup after missing the last three games. He played on the top pair with Joe Hicketts, replacing Otto Salin.

*Logan Brown played in his second straight game for the Reign.

*Jack Hughes was inserted into the starting lineup after missing Friday’s game against Henderson. He replaced Koehn Ziemmer in the lineup on the fourth line.

*Glenn Gawdin recorded an assist for the second straight game

*The Reign are 1-6-0-0 when trailing after two periods.

*Cameron Hughes recorded his 12th point (3 G, 9 A) in 21 career regular-season games against the Reign.

*Kole Lind recorded his 18th point (8 G, 10 A) in 21 career regular-season games against the Reign.

UP NEXT: The Ontario Reign are back in action on Saturday, December 6th, against the Calgary Wranglers. The game starts at 6 PM PST, and you can watch it on FloHockey or KCAL+ (channel 9.6). If you can’t watch the game, you can listen to it on the Ontario Reign radio network or on the ESPN LA app.

Featured image credit: Megan Sanders/Ontario Reign

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