Explaining The Ontario Reign’s Goaltending Rotation

Three goalies. One net.

That is the situation the Ontario Reign find themselves in. The American Hockey League focuses on development. Teams want their prospects to get as many games as possible, play in specific or all situations, and keep improving certain aspects of their game.

For the Reign, they have a logjam in net. Erik Portillo (26) is in his fourth professional season, while Hampton Slukynsky (21) and Carter George (20) are just starting in the professional ranks. The Kings’ decision to bring back last season’s goaltending duo, Darcy Kuemper and Anton Forsberg, has trickled down to the AHL club.

The initial thought of a possible rookie tandem in net for the Reign was dashed the moment the Kings decided to run back to Kuemper and Forsberg. With no offseason trades, that put all three goalies in a unique spot. At the beginning of training camp, general manager Ken Holland said Portillo was the clear-cut number-three goalie for the organization. That means he needs playing time and shouldn’t be cold when called up under any circumstances. Then you have Slukynsky and George, who also need reps to develop.

Insert the goalie rotation.

To balance playing time, the Reign have rotated starts among all three. First it was Portillo, then Slukynsky, then George. Unfortunately, the Reign’s first two weeks had only three games, with a week off between games two and three. That meant a big gap between Portillo’s and Slukynsky’s starts and a long wait for George to make his first.

After their 6-2 loss to the Coachella Valley Firebirds in their home opener, I asked Reign head coach Andrew Lord in his media scrum how he planned to evenly distribute playing time among the three of them. He described it as ‘another good problem to have.’

“We have three elite goalies,” he said after that loss. “It’s difficult at this time of the year. For whatever reason, the first couple of weeks are just so slow…When we get those midweeks [games], and there are three or four games a week, that is a much better situation for the three.”