2024-2025 Game 60: San Diego Gulls at Henderson Silverknights

Henderson, Nevada. Having completely soiled the bed against the Barracuda earlier in the week the San Diego Gulls looked to bounce back with the help of some debutantes on defense and an NHL quality goaltender.

With Stian Solberg and Ian Moore joining the line-up – Coach McIlvane elected to deploy the extra body on the back-end which was likely the right call given how depleted the forward depth had been. Solberg slotted in with McKeown on the second pairing while Moore shared duties with Noah Warren alongside Tyson Hinds

Both ECHL PTO signings were scratched to make room as well as Roman Kinal, leaving Lindmark And Howe as the spare forwards while the newcomer Twarynski stuck with the third line alongside Lopina and Judd Caulfield.

The recently returned Ville Husso was given the start with Oscar Dansk backing up.

The injury list remained the same.

First Period:

It was largely all Gulls for the first few minutes of play but the Silver Knights were able to push play back the other way as they picked up their physical forecheck.

Henderson continued to take advantage of the Gulls slightly disjointed defense, with the rolling partners clearly causing confusion at times and as momentum followed so too did the games first man advantage as Coulson Pitre was called for holding.

Killing the minor as time passed over the midway point of the period San Diego attempted to get back on the attack once again led by the top line – Nico Myatovic showing he wasn’t messing around as he put his second shot on net of the period, giving him two of the Gulls three on the night at that point.

Noah Warren was found guilty of tripping as it was shown on the replay he attempted a check in the neutral zone but the Henderson player avoided the brunt of the hit and was collected by Warrens follow through. The Power Play was short lived as Justin Bailey took advantage of a Silver Knights player losing an edge at their blue line to go in on a partial break and was hooked on his drive to the net.

Coach McIlvane showed some confidence in his newest debutants as he deployed them together on the four on four and the two did not look out of place or without chemistry as they dropped passes back to each-other. The brief Power Play that followed saw the Gulls gain some momentum and further shots on net but as time approached the final minute of play it seemed likely we might be heading to the first intermission scoreless.

Nico Myatovic had other ideas, as he took the puck from the neutral zone, passed to himself along the boards and then with speed made his way around the veteran Dysin Mayo and across the net where he executed a nice move to make it 1-0. 1-0 Gulls.

Nico strikes first 😤#LetsGoGulls | #SDvsHSK pic.twitter.com/TGKXK8TyeM

— San Diego Gulls (@SDGullsAHL) March 22, 2025

The Silver Knights attempted an instant response and came close with a rush into the Gulls zone but Ville Husso was there to make the stops and we headed to the first intermission up by one. Shots were 8-3 for the Gulls with the shot map showing both teams having a slow start to the offensive side of proceedings.

Second Period: San Diego Gulls 1 – Henderson Silver Knights 0

The Gulls had the run of play for the first five minutes of the middle frame, started off by an inspired shift by the make-shift fourth line and followed up by the top line as the ice started to open up through the neutral zone to allow San Diego to play their transition game.

The Silver Knights hit right back and were awarded another Power Play as Judd Caulfield sent the puck over the glass under pressure after his line was hemmed in.

The Gulls killed the minor with ease only allowing the one high danger chance via a miscommunication with Ville Husso and his defenders down low.

Play opened up for the next few minutes and the action was a frenetic back and forth pace as both teams traded chances off the rush.

Just as Henderson seemed to be taking back momentum once again, Rolan McKeown drew a high sticking call to halt that and send the Gulls back to the Power Play. The first unit did not take long to execute, looking dangerous right off the offensive zone draw and eventually following through on the next zone entry as a rebound bounced right to Carsen Twarynski in the slot. 2-0 Gulls.

So anyway, he started blasting!#LetsGoGulls | #SDvsHSK pic.twitter.com/Oz5iHEvEJn

— San Diego Gulls (@SDGullsAHL) March 22, 2025

Hungry for more the Gulls kept up the offense, as the Mysak line created back to back rush opportunities and on the second of which – Nico Myatovic joined from the bench to control and send a quick shot on net that fooled the Henderson goaltender for his second of the night. 3-0 Gulls.

Make it a double!#LetsGoGulls | #SDvsHSK pic.twitter.com/Rjl7WqYlzh

— San Diego Gulls (@SDGullsAHL) March 22, 2025

Henderson fought right back and came close to getting on the board but a quick whistle by the Official on a play where former Gull Robert Hagg produced a chance from the slot that Husso juggled and did not quite have but was saved by the man in stripes. Another Henderson Power Play came soon after as Ryan Carpenter was called for slashing but again the Gulls made mostly short work of the Silver Knights man advantage which was due to carry over to the third but was nullified by a too many men minor in the final seconds of the period.

San Diego taking a 3-0 lead to the second intermission despite being out-shot 12-9 on the period.

Third Period: San Diego Gulls 3 – Henderson Silver Knights 0

Time flew by to start the third as the Gulls took back to back penalties that saw the Silver Knights even the shot total and then move ahead as they continued to pepper Husso from all angles.

As time passed over the halfway point the penalty parade continued as Tristan Luneau was called for tripping and the Silver Knights looked slightly more dangerous this time – generating chances off rush zone entries and creating one high danger chance from the slot that Husso had to come out aggressively to face.

Henderson pulled their goaltender with three and a half minutes left but the Gulls immediately turned it over and transitioned up ice, getting the puck to Judd Caulfield who showed some nice moves to stutter step around the last man then move in on the empty net to deposit it in. 4-0 Gulls.

From that point on it was all she wrote as the Gulls took the 4-0 win and second shutout for Ville Husso in a Gulls sweater.

Post Game Notes:

Solberg and Moore debut

It wasn’t the easiest game to evaluate the play of the two debutantes, given nobody but Luneau and Heatherington appeared to have a regular defensive partner but from what I did see…

Solberg: You can tell he has been playing against men. For a 19 year old he was so cool, calm and unfazed. I saw the Silver Knights try to get under his skin by giving him the odd shove and cross-check to the back behind the play but he did not retaliate at all – rare for a youngster. His first pass was good and he slotted right in with the Gulls transition attack and breakout. The only big negative I saw was a play where he was drawn into a board battle that left a man open in the slot – but that’s an awareness issue that will come as he gets used to the smaller ice surface and speed of the AHL. He wasn’t afraid to shoot and his shot from the point looks to be a bomb, suggesting he could be a sneaky option for the second man advantage unit. Sadly did not see any of his trademark open ice hits but I am sure that will come.

Moore: Flew mostly under the radar which is generally a good thing for a debut. He did all of the little things right and played a mistake-free game. He looked his best walking the blue-line on offense but you also got the sense that this was merely a tutorial game for him, you can bet we will see his game expand as he gets more (no pun intended) used to his team-mates. By the second period he and Solberg appeared to have been paired together (leaving McKeown, Warren and Hinds to rotate on the third pair) and he easily adopted the veteran presence on the pairing, relieving pressure down low when the younger Solberg had the odd struggle getting away from a forechecker.

The Other New Guys

My first real look at Twarynski and Lindmark and I didn’t hate either.

Twarynski is going to fit right in and is another good pick up in the same vein as Bailey. He has very good speed and finished each and every one of his checks, he clearly is a man on a mission looking to improve on his scoring totals this season. He already appears to have the confidence of his coach – seeing time on both the penalty kill and the top power play unit and will continue to see more given he was right spot right time to get the man advantage tally tonight.

Lindmark was fast but that’s all I really noticed. Yes he also finished all of his checks but other than his speed nothing else really stood out about his game. He saw the odd shift with the make-shift fourth line and as a unit they sometimes looked good, and sometimes terrible but overall I don’t see why he shouldn’t be given another chance – particularly because he seemed to be relatively competent in the face-off circle. That does lead me to my next point though…

Line Deployment

As convincing as this win may have looked, it wasn’t. Husso had a big part of it and the Silver Knights were also not at their best. The Gulls lack of chemistry will continue to cost them if they don’t start getting some of their regulars back or if some of the new guys don’t start to jell faster. I’m not disparaging the Moores and Solbergs, nor the Twarynski’s but you could tell the defensive pairings were not working with the rotation through all but the top pairing – which is why it was kept to just the third pairing through the final two periods. Perhaps McIlvane was just using this game as an evaluation tool – I certainly hope so. If I were him I would go back to sitting one defender per game and putting a forward back in. That would mean Warren sits first – but it would rotate; Warren played a great game tonight and laid some pretty big hits but somebody has to sit to even things out. As for who comes back in the forwards – I would go with Brodzinski; granted I haven’t seen many of his games since his debut but he impressed me so much in that game and he instantly made the fourth line better. Until the Gulls start getting players back from injury – this is the best they have to work with.