2024-2025 Game 29: San Diego Gulls vs Bakersfield Condors

San Diego, California. Fresh from snapping their four game skid the San Diego Gulls welcomed in another Pacific Division rival and a familiar face as Jacob Perreault and the Bakersfield Condors came to Pechanga on a Saturday night.

All lines and defensive pairings remained the same but the Gulls net saw a huge shock in recently recalled Vyacheslav Buteyets thrown directly to the wolves and given his first AHL start while goaltending coach Jeff Glass was forced to come out of retirement and sign a professional tryout contract to back him up. Calle Clang was announced as recalled to the Ducks earlier in the day due to John Gibson being ruled out with illness and Oscar Dansk was also ruled out with illness.

Oscar Dansk unofficially joined the injury list with illness and joined Tristan Luneau, Carson Meyer, Noah Warren and Travis Howe on the sidelines. Jaxsen Wiebe was the only healthy scratch.

First Period:

The Gulls didn’t do a great job at sheltering their inexperienced goaltender as the Condors controlled their zone for the first few minutes of play forcing the young Russian to make a couple of stops in close. Bakersfield eventually wore down the San Diego line that was stuck in their own zone and opened the scoring via a back door pass that Buteyets had no chance to stop. 1-0 Condors.

Team exchanged penalties as time progressed over the midway point of the period with the visitors leading the way in possession and shots to the tune of seven to three. Buteyets seemed to settle into a groove after getting beaten by the backdoor play earlier in action.

Pavol Regenda did not provide much help to his team as he took a silly cross checking call in the neutral zone and the Bakersfield Power Play punished his transgression by exposing multiple passing lanes in the Gulls penalty kill to create a one-time chance down low. Again it would have been too much to ask Buteyets to make a stop on that play – even had he been a seasoned AHL goaltender. 2-0 Condors.

A three penalty sequence involving Jacob Perreault, Yegor Sidorov and Ronnie Attard saw the Gulls on the end of a brief four on three sequence and the forward momentum generated allowed them to control possession for most of the remainder of the period but the extra ice allowed on the rare advantage was not taken advantage of and they headed to the first intermission down by two and in need of some soul searching.

Shots were 9-4 for the Condors and the shot map showed just exactly how badly the home squad was outplayed through the first twenty minutes.

Second Period: Bakersfield Condors 2 – San Diego Gulls 0

In desperate need of a motivational pep talk the Gulls must have received one and then some between periods as they came out a completely different team to start the second period.

Getting on the board within the first minute of action as Jan Mysak received a perfect pass in the slot from Sam Colangelo and measured a shot that beat Colin Delia up high. 2-1 Condors.

San Diego followed up on the play with some physical work down low and Cam Dineen was called for hooking as he prevented Yegor Sidorov to finish a shot in close after Ryan Carpenter caused a turnover.

The Gulls were not able to convert with the man advantage but carried forward momentum and the Gaucher line tied the score with some beautiful passing as Yegor Sidorov fed the puck across to Judd Caulfield who looked off a shooting opportunity to send it back inside to Nathan Gaucher. The snake bitten future Gulls captain making no mistake to make it 2-2.

It was all Gulls as they sent rush after rush into the Bakersfield zone. One such rush led by Sam Colangelo saw the Gulls leading goal scorer weigh up his options as his line-mates got ever closer to the net – finally electing to fire a low shot that squeaked by Delia to give San Diego the lead. 3-2 Gulls.

The goal chased Delia as the Condors brought Olivier Rodrigue into the Bakersfield net.

Bakersfield regrouped after the goaltender change and stopped the bleeding as they attempted to shift momentum back their way. Vyacheslav Buteyets looked strong as he handled the sudden increase in chances coming his way and although there were some anxious moments he was mostly poised in making the necessary stops to preserve the lead.

With under two minutes left Nathan Gaucher tried to set up Nikita Nesterenko as he fought with a Condors player for a loose puck but he was deemed to have interfered on the play and the Gulls headed to the penalty kill to close out the middle frame.

Again Buteyets looked strong as he handled any chances in close while the Gulls did a much better job of denying any cross-ice passes to set up would-be one-timer opportunities.

San Diego coming back from 2-0 to take a 3-2 lead into the second intermission after putting a 12-9 spread on the Condors. Shots were 18-16 Condors overall.

Third Period: San Diego Gulls 3 – Bakersfield Condors 2

Bakersfield came with a push to start the third but the Gulls responded in kind as play was back and forth for the first five minutes.

A flat footed Andrew Lucas allowed the Condors to get an outnumbered chance which was impeded by a high stick from Dillon Heatherington and the subsequent man advantage saw the Condors tie things up via a shot-pass redirect that needed review to confirm after the initial shot hit the post and appeared to bounce off of Drake Caggiula into the net but was reviewed to ensure it was not sent into the net illegally. 3-3 tie game.

It was all Condors after the goal with the Gulls looking for something, anything to spark things back in their direction. Buteyets remained strong at denying five on five chances but San Diego were getting out muscled all over the ice as time passed by the midway point.

Nathan Gaucher attempted to provide that spark and turning point as he laid a huge but late hit on Matt Savoie and was immediately jumped by three different Condors. Somehow at the end of it all – the Gulls were the penalized squad despite all of the post whistle liberties taken.

As had been the story all night – the Condors 27th in the league ranked Power Play proved suddenly too deadly as too many bodies in front of Buteyets resulted in a goal for Bakersfield, the puck ricocheting and bouncing by him before he could discover it had changed direction and pace. 4-3 Condors.

Desperate for a push back the Gulls got caught sending too many men up high and an outnumbered Condors counter rush made it 5-3 as an inside pass to the slot was finished low. 5-3 Condors.

San Diego pulled Buteyets with over three minutes left and showed some promise for the first minute or so of the sequence before taking a hilariously stupid too many men penalty to erase any hope they had to come back the two goals.

Bakersfield taking this one to hand San Diego yet another loss on the season.

Post Game Notes:

Big Booty Debut

Our first look at Vyacheslav Buteyets and I will admit I had lower expectations given he has lost the net to Tayln Balko in Tulsa. The Ducks sixth round selection in 2022 was calm in his stance but did provide some anxious moments with some brief periods of “swimming” which seems to be the norm with raw goaltenders making their AHL debuts. He also got caught out of position a couple of times but was bailed out by team-mates clearing things up behind him. From what I saw he reminded me of a vintage Guy Hebert – good with the glove and quick to dive on loose pucks around the crease.

For the short term I wonder what the Ducks and Gulls will do though because it isn’t really ideal to have your goal-tending coach backing up your third string goaltender on a nightly basis. John Gibson was noted as being unwell on the Ducks social media channels so hopefully it’s just a one-off and Clang is returned before the next game against San Jose on Wednesday.

All About The Judd

Judd Caulfield has not gotten nearly enough love from me this season. His contributions may not be showing up on the scoresheet – he sits 12th on the Gulls in scoring with two goals and seven assists on the year – but his all around play has been a joy to watch night in and night out. He consistently outworks the opposition and more recently has been throwing around his huge frame. His foot speed has not been as evident this season – but other than that he has provided an-all around game that you can build a reliable line around.

His two year deal expires at the conclusion of this season and I don’t see why the Ducks would not re-ink him. Then again – you can never understand or predict what the Ducks will do with regard to bringing back players for the Gulls. It is something I am almost at my breaking point with.

Built To Win? Or Built To Develop?

As we watch another Gulls season go down the drain my broken record speech of “it will get better next year, look at the talent coming in” is wearing thin – let’s just say even I am sick of it. Why don’t the Ducks ever bring back players that have proved to be good pieces for their farm team and organizational depth? Let’s go down the list of the leading scorers in the AHL.

5th (tied) in scoring: Andrew Poturalski – 12 goals, 18 assists and 30 points in 28 games.

10th in scoring: Rocco Grimaldi – 7 goals, 21 assists and 28 points in 25 games.

12th in scoring: Glenn Gawdin – 9 goals, 18 assists and 27 points in 26 games.

13th in scoring: BO Groulx – 9 goals, 18 assists and 27 points in 26 games.

28th in scoring and second among defenders: Trevor Carrick – 5 goals, 19 assists and 24 points in 26 games.

36th in scoring: Andrew Agozzino – 9 goals, 14 assists and 23 points in 25 games.

It is so frustrating to see the constant revolving door of talent coming in and then leaving again while the results each season don’t change.

I get that you need to keep spots available for prospects to get ice and thus develop but at the same time – and I mean this in the nicest way – Rodwin Dionicio should probably be in the ECHL this season. He had some fun moments in this game but his foot speed is not quite up to par and he appears to tire easily in his own zone. Don’t get me wrong – he can be fun to watch with the kind of hits he throws and soft hands in close but his defensive game needs a lot of work.