REIGN FINAL – Canucks 5, Reign 4 – Wroblewski

A hat trick from Sheldon Dries was just enough to give the Abbotsford Canucks (6-6-2-1) a 5-4 victory over the Ontario Reign (11-4-0-1), who were unable to hang on to leads of 2-0 and 3-2 in the sixth meeting of the season between the two teams on Wednesday night at the Abbotsford Centre.

BOX SCORE

Ontario had four forwards find the back of the net in defeat, highlighted by Martin Frk and Gabriel Vilardi, who each posted a goal and an assist. Goaltender Garret Sparks got the start and was busy all night in the crease for the Reign, turning aside 35 of the 40 shots that came his way.

More from Reign Head Coach John Wroblewski below.

For the second straight night, Ontario opened the scoring just over a minute after the puck dropped. Wednesday it was Tyler Madden who found the back of the net first at 1:05 while crashing the cage on a rebound off a shot by Frk. The second assist on the play went to rookie defender Bobby Russell, who was making his AHL debut with Ontario in his home province.

Frk extended the advantage to 2-0 at 6:40 and became the first Reign skater to reach double digits on the season with his 10th goal of the year. TJ Tynan got things started by feeding Jaret Anderson-Dolan down low whose initial chance was stopped, but Frk knocked home the rebound to double the Ontario advantage.

However, just like Tuesday, the Reign were unable to hold their early lead. The Canucks got on the board at 14:51 of the first when Dries beat Sparks for the first time and former Reign forward Sheldon Rempal evened the score at 2-2 just before the end of the period at 18:38.

Ontario regained the lead in the second on Samuel Fagemo’s seventh goal of the season which came via the power play from Vilardi and Helge Grans to make it 3-2 at 11:21.

But a major penalty to Austin Wagner set up a lengthy Abbotsford power play that spanned the end of the second period into the third frame. After an additional penalty to Madden for delay of game put the Canucks on a 5-on-3 advantage, Dries evened the score at 3-3.

After the Reign killed the rest of the penalty at the start of the third, Abbotsford’s Tristen Nielsen scored his first AHL goal at 3:15 to put the Canucks in front for the first time at 4-3.

Ontario had life late in the contest and evened up the score once again on Vilardi’s second goal of the year at 10:47 but Dries completed the hat trick with the game-winner at 16:11 to put Abbotsford in front for good.

After the Reign had a 15-13 edge in shots on goal in the opening period, the Canucks controlled the majority of the chances in the latter stages and ended up with a 40-29 advantage in the game. Ontario converted on 2-of-7 power plays, while Abbotsford went 1-for-5 on the man-advantage.

Canucks’ goaltender Spencer Martin earned his first win of 2021-22 with 25 saves.

The Reign’s schedule resumes Saturday night when they travel to Bakersfield to battle the Condors at 7 p.m. at Mechanics Bank Arena.

John Wroblewski
On what the key points of the game were
I certainly had a feeling on the bench when we had that 4-on-3 chance in the first to go up 3-0, I really felt like that was an important conversion opportunity that we didn’t get done. From there, you’re just toying with a few plays that can go either way. Even though it was a line rush against, it was a 1-on-1 read that we surrendered on the first goal against, we had a puck on our stick right before the second goal and then a couple of 1-on-1s that unfortunately, it was some young defensemen who were at the cost of the fourth and fifth goal. You give up five goals and it’s not a great recipe. It’s all learning opportunities.

On the play of Garret Sparks to keep the team in the game
In the second period, Sparksy was really sharp and despite how consistent we’ve been prior to this unfortunate break with our puck management, we were deficient in that department in the second period. We exposed it to the middle of the ice way too often. I’d even go as far as to use the word careless when we could have kept it simple by chipping it out. It opened up the game and we had to ask too much from our goaltender.

On the team’s final chances when trailing in the closing minutes
This team has given us a lot of reasons to have optimism that no matter what the score is and where and when it is that you’re going to be able to come out on top. I like the way that our power play moved the puck around in the third and especially that top unit and overall tonight I thought we were pretty sharp on the 5-on-4, but just hit a crossbar there and couldn’t get that one key play to get us over the top of it.