On Monday night, the Ontario Reign dropped their final preseason game 5-2 to the San Diego Gulls. Sutter and Sodergran scored in the loss.
In the final preseason game, the Ontario Reign fell to the San Diego Gulls 5-2.
As expected, it was a different lineup than we saw in the first preseason game:
Here’s how the @ontarioreign lineup is expected to look tonight:
Madden – Turcotte – Kupari
Burke – Anderson-Dolan – Dudas
Gerads- Sutter – Doty
Sodergran – Pavlychev – Brett Kemp
Moverare – Grans
Clague – Spence
Phillips – Durzi
Sparks
Villalta— Jared Shafran (@ShafReign) October 12, 2021
The Reign had jumped out to a fast start, controlling much of the play early in the first period, but it was San Diego who struck first. An unlucky bounce off of Helge Grans led to a bit of a broken play. Alex Limoges was left alone in front to give the Gulls the 1-0 lead:
There's no way @LimogesAlex is missing this!#LetsGoGulls | #ONTvsSD pic.twitter.com/p7DN2Sbev9
— San Diego Gulls (@SDGullsAHL) October 12, 2021
The lead was short-lived as Brett Sutter tied things up for Ontario, darting through the center of the San Diego zone:
Woahhhhh pic.twitter.com/8KGbiAIPht
— Ontario Reign (@ontarioreign) October 12, 2021
Brogan Rafferty put the Gulls back ahead with a nice play through the neutral zone before splitting the Reign defense:
Brogan Rafferty cut through Ontario's "defense" like a hot knife through butter!#LetsGoGulls | #ONTvsSD pic.twitter.com/XMH3gUtr0V
— San Diego Gulls (@SDGullsAHL) October 12, 2021
With the Reign on the power play, Vinni Lettieri took advantage of a misplay in the neutral zone, beating Sparks on a pretty move to the backhand for the short-handed goal:
Ingredients for a filthy shorthanded goal:
1⃣ part great fake
1⃣ part fantastic backhand
1⃣ part incredible finish@19Lettieri95 wasn't messing around! pic.twitter.com/zI72kSnFbx— San Diego Gulls (@SDGullsAHL) October 12, 2021
Other than the score, it was really not a bad period for the Reign. They outshot the Gulls 11-6 and at 5-on-5 out-attempted them 28-17.
Matt Villalta took over in net at the start of the 2nd period, and he made a point-blank glove save to keep the score at 3-1:
The score would stay 3-1 until Nikita Pavlychev made a nice play down the left wing before dishing the puck in front to Johan Sodergran, who pulled the Reign within one:
— Ontario Reign (@ontarioreign) October 12, 2021
Ontario again controlled much of the play at 5-on-5 in the second period, out-attempting the Gulls 13-7. Thanks to some special teams, San Diego outshot the Reign 10-9.
In the third, after some pressure put on by the Reign, the Gulls would regain their two-goal lead with a Bryce Kindopp goal that beat Villalta up high after a deflection:
Good shot (and a little help from our friends) puts us up by @kindoppian | #LetsGoGulls pic.twitter.com/W2ABuo6Tfj
— San Diego Gulls (@SDGullsAHL) October 12, 2021
San Diego would add an empty netter to close it out.
The full box score is here.
The Reign begin their regular season on Saturday night against the Gulls, 9 pm PT from Toyota Center in Ontario.
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