Ontario Reign: Three Takeaways From 6-3 Loss to San Jose

The Ontario Reign suffered a weekend sweep at the hands of the San Jose Barracuda with a grueling 6-3 loss on Sunday afternoon.

Goal Breakdown

First period:

SJ: PP Jimmy Huntington (5), ASST: Mattias Havelid (5), Egor Afanasyev (5)

ONT: Jared Wright (6), ASST: Koehn Ziemmer (6), Nikita Alexandrov (14)

SJ: Kapser Halttumen (6), ASST: Pavol Regenda (8), Patrick Giles (4)

SJ: Shane Bowers (1), ASST: Oliver Wahlstrom (8), Jimmy Huntington (10)

Second period: 

SJ: Filip Bystedt (8), ASST: None

ONT: Koehn Ziemmer (2), Glenn Gawdin (15), Angus Booth (5)

Third period:

ONT: Jack Hughes (2), ASST: Jared Wright (5)

SJ: EN Patrick Giles (5), ASST: Jack Thompson (6), Jimmy Huntington (11)

SJ: EN Pavol Regenda (4), ASST: Lucas Carlsson (5), Cam Lund (12)

Stats

Goals: 

SJ: 6

ONT: 3

Shots: 

SJ: 27

ONT: 29

Power plays: 

SJ: 1/3

ONT: 0/2

Here are the three takeaways from Sunday night’s 6-3 defeat:

Self-inflicted harm

The Reign surrendered the first goal again and had to play catch-up for most of the game, due to their own doing. San Jose’s forecheck, speed, and skill had an impact on this game, causing turnovers that led to one of three things: sustained offensive zone time, a scoring chance, or a goal.

Turnovers, or other inflicted wounds, like a bad pinch, in any league will always hurt you at some point. Two goals that come to mind right off the bat were Taylor Ward’s turnover on an outlet pass that led to Shane Bowers’ goal and Kirill Kirsanov’s turnover that led to Filip Bystedt’s unassisted tally.

Those plays are always fixable. It was just a rough night, maybe weekend, at the office for the Reign. Fortunately, the holiday break will give the team a chance to reset.

Bad blood (again) and the Reign lose two players early

Tensions boiled again, and it was ugly. Not even the holidays can stop these two teams from chirping at one another or having physical and intense battles. It started early when a post-whistle scrum led to a roughing penalty and a game misconduct for leaving the bench on Andre Lee. Neither Lee nor head coach Andrew Lord was happy with the call, and if the league determines Lee left the bench on his own and wasn’t on the ice due to a line change, then he could face a suspension.

The bad blood continued throughout the game, leading to 71 penalty minutes from the two teams (one 10-minute misconduct and game misconduct on each side). There probably should’ve been more, as the officials missed several calls, such as a missed boarding call on Filip Bystedt on Joe Hicketts, leading to the latter and Taylor Ward taking matters into their own hands on the former.

With the bad blood, the Reign lost Kyle Burroughs to an injury (maybe a lower-body injury) 3:15 into the game. Losing Lee and Burroughs on top of not having Francesco Pinelli (injury) and Cole Guttman (two-game suspension) unavailable made the uphill battle steeper for the Reign.

I expect more tension again in their next meeting on December 27th.

Prospects find the scoresheet

Despite the loss, there was some good in this game. All three Reign goals came from a prospect as Jack Hughes, Jared Wright, and Koehn Ziemmer, all found the back of the net in the loss. Hughes scored his first goal since Halloween, which also came against San Jose, to pull the Reign within one in the third period.

Wright and Ziemmer both recorded multi-point games (1 G, 1 A) with Wright scoring his first in 10 games and Ziemmer getting his first in 13 games. From my perspective, this was Ziemmer’s best game of the season. He was moving his feet and not hesitating to shoot the puck. He tied his season high with four shots on goal and a +2 rating. He made the most of his opportunity, being elevated to the third line and playing a lot of minutes due to Guttman’s suspension and the mixed lines throughout the game.

NOTES:

*Jacob Doty returned to the lineup after missing the last 16 games with an injury.

*Mattias Sholl made his AHL debut and made 21 saves on 25 shots in the loss.

*If Burroughs has to miss significant time, Otto Salin is a candidate to slide into the lineup.

*Ziemmer’s multi-point game gave him four points in six games against the Barracuda (both two-point games). Half of his eight points have come against the Barracuda this season.

*Both of Hughes’ goals this season have come against San Jose.

*Sharks prospect Quentin Musty finished the game on Saturday after receiving an illegal check to the head from Cole Guttman, but missed this game.

UP NEXT: The holiday break! Merry Christmas, everyone! The next Reign game is December 27th, against the Barracuda in San Jose at 6 PM PST.

Featured image credit: Megan Sanders/Ontario Reign

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