The San Diego Gulls have languished near the bottom of the American Hockey League’s Pacific Division for the past three seasons, missing the genrous cut for the Calder Cup playoffs.
Seven of the 10 teams in the division advance to post-season play. The Gulls finished in last place by a whopping 20 points in 2022-23 and were ninth in both 2023-24 and last season.
A reversal of fortune could be in the offing in 2025-26 after a recent spurt had launched the San Diego team into sixth place in the division standings, braced by a gritty 5-4 come-from-behind shootout win at the division-leading Colorado Eagles last weekend.
The Gulls scored in the final minute of last Friday’s two-game series opener to send the game into an extra period. After both teams skated to a scoreless tie in the five-minute overtime period, the Southern Californians captured a five-round shootout 1-0.
Justin Bailey scored the equalizer with just 26 seconds remaining in regulation, assisted by Sam Colangelo and Ryan Carpenter.
Judd Caulfield gave the Gulls the comeback win with the only tally in the shootout. He was confident he could score.
“I got a couple of moves, honestly, when I come in like that, I like going five hole,” Caulfield said of his game-winner. “It just kind of depends what the goalie is doing there … That’s kind of my go-to, that same approach. And then there’s usually a few different ways you can branch off of it. But I like kind of going five hole, it’s usually there. So, it worked out for me (in the game), and I was glad to see it go in.”
The Gulls never lost confidence despite being down two goals late in the game.
“We just have resiliency in our group, and we just band together in those tough moments,” Caulfield said.”You can’t get too high or get too low. When we’re up two, I think (we) might have got a little bit of complacency in our game, but we fought back and we were resilient. There’s just no quitting our game, which we love to see as all our players, and we just bond together there.”
The shootout win was the Gulls’ first victory in the Eagles’ nest since March 2022.
The Gulls compiled a 7-2-1-1 record in December (grabbing 16 of a possible 22 points) and took a 3-1-0-1 record (seven out of a possible 10 pingts) from the Christmas break into the game against the division leaders.
“That’s a big focus for us for sure,” said Nathan Gaucher, who picked up two goals in the win, his first multi-goal AHL effort. “We want to challenge ourselves against the best, and that’s the best team in our conference as well. So, I think we were right up there with them, and it’s a good challenge for us, and we answered.”
San Diego head coach Matt McIlvane admitted it went down to the wire to get the result.
“Well, there’s 60 minutes on the clock for a reason, so sometimes you have to use them all,” McIlvane said. “We’ve got a lot of resiliency in our team. We’re very aware that we’re capable of mounting comebacks and pushing games into overtime. We’ve done this multiple times throughout the course of the season. You don’t want to be in that situation. You want to be in control of the game, but the character that the guys showed to get to that point was excellent.
“I don’t think the San Diego Gulls have won in Colorado since 2022 and so it’s a good feat for our group. It’s just a reminder of where our team is this year. We can come into Colorado and win. The thing is, I don’t even think we played our best game like that. There’s so much that can be improved upon in this game that we’ll be excited to look into and get better at, but that was a good team win.”
Epic finishes appear nothing new for the Gulls this season. Matthew Phillips scored with an extra-atacker to knot the score, 2-all, against the visiting San Jose Barracuda on Jan. 7. That game proceeded to a seven-round shootout the Gulls prolonged four times before the Bay Area visitors finally pulled out a gritty 3-2 win of their own.
The Cuda entered the game in third place in the division standings, so playing even with the division’s elite teams has become a habit for McIlvane’s team this season.
The shootout loss awarded the Gulls with a key standings point instead of falling two points further behind the Cuda.
““Yeah, it’s huge,” Phillips said after the team managed to pick up a crucial standings point.
“I mean, obviously a disappointing result tnd pretty flat on the bench after that five-minute power play (in which the visitors out-shot the hosts), but the message was to just kind of regroup and put that behind us. And we battled really hard to push it to overtime and had a couple chances to win the game still, but we’ll take the point.”
The Gulls entered Friday’s game eight points arrears of the Eagles in the standings but didn’t seemed too perturbed by taking an early 2-0 lead. The visitors then battled back from a two-goals deficit after Colorado reeled off four unanswered goals to take a 4-2 lead.
Gaucher netted his second and third goals of the season, the latter pulling the Gulls to within 5-4 on the scoreboard with 7:15 to play. Bailey collected a goal (his team-leading 12th) and an assist (his eighth).
Nico Myatovic scored his fifth goal of the season, his second power play goal. He is the only Gull with with multiple power play goals and shorthanded goals (two), and only one of seven players to do so in the league.
Colangelo registered his eighth assist of the season to extend his point streak to seven games (two goals, six assists).
Carpenter collected his 15th assist of the season to give him points in six of his last eight games (two goals, five assists).
Goaltender Calle Clang stopped a season-high 38 fo 42 shots in regulation and overtime, including all five shootout attempts he faced, to improve his season record to 6-1-3.
The Gulls lost Saturday’s rematch, 6-0, but the message had been delivered.
The Gulls return to Pechanga Arena for a pair of divisional matchups this weekend: Friday against the defending Calder Cup champion Abbotsford Canucks (following a Wednesday matchup) and Saturday against the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
Saturday’s game doubles as Native American Heritage Night.
