Samuel Fagemo scored in his return and Jaret Anderson-Dolan found the back of the net twice as the Ontario Reign (7-4-1) defeated the Colorado Eagles (6-5-3) Sunday afternoon by a final score of 4-2 at Toyota Arena.
Goaltender David Rittich earned his fourth victory of the season for Ontario with 25 saves while also picking up a primary assist, helping to set up Anderson-Dolan’s first goal with a long stretch pass. Forward Jacob Doty also scored for the second straight game in the win, posting his fourth tally of the year.
Doty got the scoring started with the lone goal of the opening period on an unassisted backhand wraparound that got past Colorado goaltender Justus Annunen late in the frame at 17:50 and gave the Reign a 1-0 lead at the first intermission.
Anderson-Dolan extended the advantage to 2-0 at 9:14 of the second off the stretch pass by Rittich, who made a save and initially looked like he would hold on to the puck but instead dropped it to the ice before firing it to Anderson-Dolan at the offensive blue line. The forward came in alone on a breakaway to beat Annunen for his first goal in his third AHL game of the year.
It took until 9:35 of the third period for Colorado to beat Rittich for the first time when Oskar Olausson netted a power play goal to get the visitors on the board and cut the Reign lead back to a single goal.
But Fagemo responded less than a minute later at 10:21 with a blast from the top of the offensive zone off a faceoff win. Brandt Clarke put the puck in Fagemo’s wheelhouse and TJ Tynan won the draw to earn the second helper on the play.
Anderson-Dolan added more insurance for the Reign in the closing minutes, flipping a puck down the ice from his own zone for an unassisted empty-net goal at 18:22.
In the closing minute, Ivan Ivan snuck a puck past Rittich for Colorado to net the final goal of the contest.
Olausson’s goal was the only power play strike of the game, as Colorado finished 1-for-4 on the man-advantage while Ontario ended at 0-for-3. Annunen stopped 25 of the Reign’s shots on goal in a losing effort for the Eagles.
Postgame thoughts from head coach Marco Sturm, Fagemo and Anderson-Dolan are below.
Marco Sturm
On getting Samuel Fagemo back
First of all, he’s a good person and I really enjoyed working with him. He’s a good player and he was always a good player for us, and he got bounced around a little bit and had a good experience with Nashville. Unfortunately, they put him on waivers again, but we were lucky enough to get him back. You could tell today, there are those moments he creates with his dangerous shot. It makes a difference.
On Jaret Anderson-Dolan’s performance
Even with my experience as a player, if you don’t play a lot, it’s hard. You could tell last game that he was rusty. That’s the nice part for me as a former player, I know what it feels like and that’s why I was not worried. He practiced with us yesterday and I knew he was going to come out much better today. Basically, he just needs reps. Right now, he doesn’t have it with the Kings. It was only a matter of time for him, so that’s why I left him alone.
On the differences between this week and last week
It started with practice at home. Last week we started with bad practices. Game two in Colorado was really good. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the bounces but overall it was just not a good week from us. This week, we wanted to change that and we changed right away. We followed up some good practices with some good games and in the past, all our good games came from good weeks. That’s why the guys are going to have a day off tomorrow and hopefully we can build on this.
On next weekend’s games against Calgary
They’re hard to play against. They’re all workers and it’s always a fight. We’ve just got to be ready to go and we’ll make sure we’re ready to compete with those guys and hopefully we’ll steal a win or two.
Samuel Fagemo
On immediately joining the lineup
I came in this morning at 9:30. I skated here in the morning and felt pretty good, so I was just wanting to play hockey. I think the first couple of shifts were pretty tough but I was building better and better each shift.
On his last month with Nashville and returning to Ontario
It’s been a busy month. First of all, it was such a fun experience for me to get better as a player and as a person as well. I’m just super happy to have gotten the chance and pretty sad to get put on waivers again, but I’m just super happy that the Kings picked me up again and to get the opportunity to play with the Reign. It just feels more comfortable and its such a great team with a nice staff as well. It was for sure a busy couple hours for me.
On joining a team with so many familiar faces
I think the turnaround wasn’t too hard for me. The first couple shifts maybe, but then it felt normal. I’ve been in this system and in this rink for a long time now, so I was feeling very comfortable for sure.
On scoring in his return to Ontario
It was for sure a great feeling. I was trying to shoot the puck at five-on-five, and I had some shots there on the power play too, so it was a nice faceoff play from JAD and it went in.
Jaret-Anderson Dolan
Ontario has a week of practice before returning to their home ice at Toyota Arena to open up a two-game series with the Calgary Wranglers on Friday night at 7 p.m.
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