Playing their third game against the same foe – the San Diego Gulls hoped to get the best of three in their second match in the desert against the Henderson Silver Knights, whom they narrowly avoided an embarrassing four goal comeback from in their first game and then took a 4-1 drubbing in their second. Overjoyed by the return of Lukas Dostal the Gulls also were assigned 2021 goal-tending selection Gage Alexander who recently signed his entry level deal mid-season.
Blake McLaughlin finally got back into the line-up in place of Travis Howe but all other lines remained the same.
Lukas Dostal was given the start with Olle Erikkson Ek backing up.
First Period:
The hard physical end to end action carried over from the previous two encounters and the Silver Knights were first to get a chance on the Gulls net as Connor Ford made a determined drive, fighting Nik Brouillard and edging in tight on Lukas Dostal but the highly touted Ducks prospect turned aside his attempt.
In the other direction Brayden Tracey had the Gulls best chance in the early goings off of some good forechecking by Grimaldi and Gawdin.
After the following TV timeout the same line stayed out and continued to dominate the Silver Knights zone, both Helleson and Del Zotto roamed and acted as additional forwards cycling with their team-mates. As Jiri Petera lost his stick making one of many saves during the sequence Michael Del Zotto recognized this and moved in calling for the puck, he eventually floated back out of traffic and then around to the left side where Rocco Grimaldi found him for an easy but pretty goal. 1-0 Gulls.
Teams exchanged power play opportunities as the game progressed over the midway point and as play returned to five on five the Gulls began to press again, taking advantage of the Silver Knights disjointed play as a result of several players having been recently recalled to the parent club.
San Diego taking a rare 12-4 shot advantage and a 1-0 lead into the first intermission.
Second Period: San Diego Gulls 1 – Henderson Silver Knights 0
San Diego continued to execute the perfect road game to start the second, as they maintained possession as much possible and stifled the Henderson offense while frustrating their breakout.
Slowly but surely Henderson crept back into the game as things started to open up, before long the large shot disparity quickly shrunk to 16-12 for the Gulls and Lukas Dostal was being called upon stop chances of a higher difficulty.
Back to back San Diego power plays ensured that the Gulls took back momentum, even as the first power play was mostly thwarted as the first unit had trouble gaining the zone.
Tempers flared with just over a minute left and ended with Colton White picking up both a hooking and a roughing minor on the same play, that later of which was served by Hunter Drew. Glen Gawdin also picked up a roughing minor in the fracas with the Silver Knights only picking up the one other roughing infraction. As the Silver Knights announcing crew (AHL TV had me stuck with them) bemoaned the ill treatment of their players and called for misconducts they seemed to be briefly satisfied by the resulting five on three only to see Lukas Dostal put up an impenetrable wall to close out the period – turning aside six straight shots, four of which were all high danger chances.
San Diego still up by one after forty minutes of play but now only holding a 21-19 shot advantage with the rest of the five on three on a fresh sheet of ice to contend in the final period.
Third Period: San Diego Gulls 1 – Henderson Silver Knights 0
The Gulls did a stellar job of killing the remaining thirty or so seconds of the five on three, not allowing the Silver Knights to get zone entry or set at all and then converting a turnover to a five on two rush the other way once both Drew and Gawdin exited the box.
Henderson tried to re-establish momentum but the Gulls blue-line remained resilient, denying zone entries and only having trouble with the Henderson fourth line who were unafraid to dump the puck in and attempt to win puck battles.
Time flew by on the period and with the Gulls seeing back to back great shifts from the Grimaldi line and then followed up by the Regenda/Groulx line – Pavol Regenda hit the back of the Henderson net for the insurance marker. Regenda himself prevented a Henderson break out by laying a heavy hit on Spencer Foo to cause a turnover, BO Groulx picked up the loose puck and sent it back in deep where David Cotton won a puck battle against a tired Henderson defender and sent it out to the slot for Regenda. 2-0 Gulls. Great shift from a line that has been coming on of late.
On the very next shift Lukas Dostal made a desperation kick save on a loose rebound out front as the Silver Knights came back with an immediate response and then Jacob Perreault created his own breakaway the other way but was stopped by Petera on the forehand.
Henderson continued to press – earning a Power Play via a bad tripping infraction by Josh Lopina but Michael Del Zotto evened things up by goading the Silver Knights Lukas Comier into a slashing call a minute into their man advantage.
One last test of adversity was met when Josh Helleson was given an interference call and Henderson not only got set but looked very dangerous on the man advantage. Once again it was Lukas Dostal, staying calm and deflecting shot after shot sent his way while diving and stopping back to back point blank shots to send Henderson forwards looking skyward in despair.
The Silver Knights pulled Patera with almost two minutes to play but Brayden Tracey showed deadly accuracy on the backhand as he sent a clearance from just in front of his own net all the way down the ice and into the empty Henderson net. 3-0 Gulls.
San Diego getting back into the win column and taking the holiday-break three game series with Henderson 2-1.
Post Game Notes:
MDZ MVP
It’s pretty clear Michael Del Zotto is a league above the competition. He took a game or two to settle in but is looking more than comfortable and is putting on a clinic night in and night out. It did hurt to lose O’Regan but it was the right move and Del Zotto is just what the Gulls needed. Of course you could look back and wonder why they let the likes of Trevor Carrick go in the first place but here is hoping that this new management recognizes the need to keep existing chemistry and personnel in place for the long run in order to help development and create a winning atmosphere. I have been very impressed with the moves management made to right the skid, they seem to be working for the most part – as small as they seemed at the time. Speaking of those moves.
More for Hora
I’ve spoken about him already recently in a post game note but I have to say again, where did they find this guy? I know I already did a shallow dive on him and mentioned his history last time I wrote about him but it is so hard to match that up with the kind of player I am seeing. He made a very nice rush from his own goal line in tonight’s game as well as breaking up several plays and played the body only when suitable, not when emotions dictated. I already said this last time I wrote about him but he is one to watch, if he manages to stay in the line-up once players return from injury – he could really make something of this stint. On injuries and player movement…
So long White
Let us not forget that Colton White is only in San Diego on a conditioning loan and this was his fifth game with the Gulls, the longest stint of any player loaned thus far this season (remember Sam Carrick had just the one game and the same for Urko Vaakanainen). The standard length of time for a conditioning loan is 14 consecutive days, according to AHL Transactions White was assigned on the 19th of December so January the 2nd should be his last day with San Diego – meaning this was likely his last game. Luka Profaca likely draws back in for the next game but here is hoping either of Josh Healey, Axel Anderson or Olli Juolevi is close to returning.
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