Plus And Minuses From The Ontario Reign’s Opening Week

+: Jared Wright scores a pair

Jared Wright, a second-year pro, stood out this past weekend. Wright had a pair of tallies, including the overtime winner in the opening game. One area Wright will need to keep working on to be a solid bottom-six contributor at the NHL level is finishing. He’s already off to a great start in that department.

+: Eight goals

The Reign had no issues scoring goals this weekend. They scored eight goals, with six in the first game. In that game, Ontario clawed back from down two goals on three occasions (3-1, 4-2, and 5-3).

+: Hockey is back

Finally! Hockey is back!! That’s probably the most positive outcome this past week.

Negatives

-: Too many penalties

Now we head to the negatives. Both teams took too many penalties. Lane Pederson in particular committed four penalties, including a natural hat trick of that kind in the opening game. The referees called it tight all weekend, but as players, you have to adjust. Maybe it’s also just early-season mishaps.

-: Abysmal special teams

We talked about too many penalties; well, that led to poor special teams play. Starting with the power play, the Reign went 2-for-11 (18.2%) and looked out of sync. Zone entries were a clear problem, and several times they spent the full two minutes of the power play trying to gain the zone with possession and couldn’t. When they did get set up, Coachella Valley took away Martin Chromiak, the first option, forcing the Reign to look out of sorts at times.

As for the penalty kill, they didn’t fare any better. The Firebirds went 5-for-8 (62.5%) against the Reign penalty kill and made it look easy when up a skater. Their player and puck movement caused problems for the Reign penalty killers, and they got passes through the middle across the ice for a Jani Nyman one-timer. Having a full week off, I expect special teams to have been a focus point in practice.

-: 11 goals against

Although the Reign scored eight goals, they tied with the Chicago Wolves for the most goals allowed with 11. I wouldn’t panic after two games because it is early in the season, and plenty of newcomers are on the blue line. Luckily for the Reign, they can correct the mistakes that led to those goals.