The San Diego Gulls, not long removed from last place in the American Hockey League’s Pacific Division standings, suddenly find themselves in a playoff race as the season enters its stretch drive. That’s something good for Gulls fans who had endured through mostly a lackluster first half of the season.
The Gulls are now winning more than losing and winning in bunches more times than not. A seven-game winning streak — just one game from tying the franchise record — did much to catapult the San Diego team from the doldrums of last place to within five points of the division’s final playoff berth, currently held by the Tucson Roadrunners, and three points from nudging the Bakersfield Condors from eighth place.
In the process, the Gulls (ninth place) have moved a more comfortable five standings points ahead of the Henderson Silver Knights (10th place).
The top seven teams in the 10-team Pacific Division qualify for the upcoming Calder Cup playoffs.
The Gulls are 8-1-0-1 in their last 10 games as the hottest team in the division. They’re finding ways to win, which is a must in engaging in any playoff race, especially if it’s the race for the final playoff berth.
The Gulls have made up nine standings points in the last month; there is one month left in regular season play.
“One of the things we’ve seen, we’ve talked about this plenty in our group, is the ability to come back and mount comebacks that seem insurmountable,” San Diego head coach Matt McIlvane said. “That’s, when you’re 14 points out right after the all-star break, it kind of feels that way, and so does a five-goal deficit or a four-goal deficit. We’ve seen us come back from those kinds of things as well. Our group’s capable of some miraculous comebacks. We’ve got a lot of character, grit, resiliency, and let’s just keep our pedal to the metal here.”
The Gulls’ latest comeback — from 2-0 down after the first period in Saturday’s game against the visiting Ontario Reign to a 5-3 victory — embodied just that kind of team character.
It’s been repeated numerous times of late in what has become an ongoing process of refusing to lose.
The Gulls claimed two overtime contests in a pair of road games – 5-4 in San Jose on March 5 and 3-2 in Ontario on last Friday. The San Diegans erased four separate one-goal deficits in San Jose before captain Ryan Carpenter scored 1:04 in overtime to deliver the game-winning goal. Carpenter scored his 17th goal of the season 1:27 into the extra period to bring the visitors full circle in Friday’s comeback win over the host Reign.
The Gulls trailed 2-1 on the scoreboard while being out-shot 22-6 at one point in the second period. But the visitors reversed course, out-shot the Reign 6-5 in the remainder of the period and netted the equalizing goal off the stick by Yegor Sidorov at 15:26. A scoreless third period followed. Oscar Dansk picked up the win in the San Diego net with 34 saves on 36 shots.
Despite their upward climb in the standings, the Gulls do not necessarily control their own fate. There are two other teams presently ahead of them in the standings also wanting to advance to post season play. Tucson has been pressed to keep pace with the Gulls and are two points ahead of Bakersfield, which is five points ahead of the Gulls.
Bakersfield has three games in hand on the Gulls while the Roadrunners have one game in hand.
McIlvane and San Diego players have reiterated in recent weeks that every game essentially amounts to a playoff game.
Saturday’s game felt like a playoff game in every sense.
The Reign, fresh to avenge the OT loss the night before and make a climb towards first place in the division standings, came out roaring from the gate. Luke Rowe scored the go-ahead goal at 1:19, his second of the season, assisted by Charles Hudon (his 32nd) and Francesco Pinelli (his 11th).
The game opened all Reign with a 7-0 edge in shots before the hosts chipped back to narrow the Ontario advantage to 9-5.
The Reign killed the Gulls momentum, however, with a 2-0 lead as Jeff Malott scored his 18th goal of the season, assisted by Samuel Fagemo (his 10th) and Glenn Gawdin (his 29th), at 16:47.
The first period ended with an 11-8 lead in shots for Ontario.
The second period belonged to the Gulls, however, with a 3-0 run to take a 3-2 lead through two periods.
Justin Bailey continued to prove his worth by scoring on a penalty shot at 15:49 to halve the Ontario lead. Bailey took the puck to the boards, then cut back toward Reign netminder Dryden McKay, waited for McKay to commit, then flipped the puck back over the prostrate goaltender to land between McKay’s legs in the back of the net.
The goal was Bailey’s 16th of the season and his 16th point (nine goals, seven assists) in 19 games since arriving in the trade with San Jose on Jan. 25.
That was just the beginning.
Judd Caulfield tied the game, 2-2, at 16:36 while catching McKay out of position. Assists went to Nathan Gaucher (his 11th) and Tyson Hinds (his 13th). The goal was Caulfield’s seventh of the season.
Nikita Nesterenko then scored on a breakaway at 19:33 and it was suddenly a whole new game.
3-2 Gulls.
The goal was Nesterenko’s 13th of the season.
The shots were 19-10 in favor of the hosts in the middle stanza for a 27-21 San Diego lead through two periods.
The third period was played throughout with playoff intensity. Not only were the Gulls in need of a win to keep chasing Tucson and Bakersfield in the division standings but the Reign also needed critical points in a bid to retake the division lead.
Ontario tied the game, 3-3, at 7:53 on a goal by Jack Studnicka, who lifted the puck top shelf on San Diego goaltender Ville Hus¬so. The goal was Studnicka’s 14th of the season. Assists went to Taylor Ward (his 11th) and Rowe (his sixth).
The sizable contingent of Reign supporters among the 8,232 in attendance, began chanting “Let’s Go Reign!”
But the Gulls had an answer for that as Jan Mysak, taking advantage of a fortunate bounce in front of McKay, tapped the puck inside the far post to get a rise out of the home crowd.
4-3 San Diego.
The goal was Mysak’s 16th of the season. Assists went to Yegor Sidorov (his 15th) and Nico Myatovic (his fifth).
All that was left was for the Gulls to score into an empty net to seal the dramatic 5-3 win in the teams’ Southern California rivalry series. Nathan Gaucher got the empty-netter, his eighth goal of the season, assisted by Nesterenko (his 21st) and Caulfield (his 12th).
It marked the third consecutive win for the Gulls – all by one goal — and it was a vital one as Bakersfield edged Tucson, 3-2, to draw the three teams to within five standings points of each other. The Roadrunners lead the trio with 59 points, followed by the Condors with 57 points and the Gulls with 54 points. Henderson is five points behind the Gulls in 10th place and 10 points behind Tucson.
Final shots were 37-30 in favor of San Diego. Husso was credited with 27 saves on 30 shots while McKay logged 32 saves on 36 shots.
Nesterenko was tabbed first star with a goal and assist while Gaucher (one goal, one assist) received second star billing. Caulfield (one goal, one assist) made it a clean sweep for the Gulls in the three-star awards as the game’s No. 3 star.
Caulfield tallied his fourth multi-point goal of the season. Nesterenko has tallied point in seven of his last nine games. Husso is 3-1 with one shutout since joining the Gulls.
The Gulls now await the Colorado Eagles for a two-game weekend home ice series March 14-15,
The season has suddenly taken on a very interesting turn and one has to wonder how it will end, possibly with a playoff berth for the Gulls if they can keep up their recent momentum (21 out of 24 standings points).
Amazing turnaround, simply amazing. But the pressure now is to keep it going.
“I said it I think the second game I was here, you have to kill the Gulls, you can’t leave us around,” Bailey said. “And it’s truly special of this group. There’s no panic. We believe in the system. We believe in what we’re doing. We carry that belief into the locker room each and every night. And when you have guys that are playing hard for each other each and every night, unselfishly within the structure. And you take that confidence of never being out of games, and that’s what you see, game in and game out.
“We stuck with what was working (Saturday against the Reign). Obviously, you want to keep that lead the whole third, but we battle for one another. We’ve been battling for one another, going through that winning streak in February, really, I think, showed us we can compete with every single team in this division, and we’ve competed with everybody and done really, really well against everyone for the last two months.
“We’re happy with that, but at the same time, coming back from the all-star break, we knew it was going to be an uphill battle. We’re happy with what we’ve done, but our mentality is focused on the next game. The next game is the most important, and every game going down the stretch is going to be huge for us. And it’s exciting. I’m really happy to be a part of it, and it’s a lot of fun playing these games.”
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Feb. 12: Gulls 4, Abbotsford 1
Feb. 15: Gulls 5, Coachella Valley 3
Feb. 16: Gulls 4, San Jose 2
Feb. 19: Gulls 5, Abbotsford 3
Feb. 21: Gulls 4, Bakersfield 1
Feb. 22: Gulls 5, Bakersfield 4 (OT)
Feb. 26: Gulls 4, Calgary 0
