REIGN PRESEASON FINAL – Reign 2, Gulls 6 – Sturm, Ward

In their only game of the 2022 preseason, one that was filled with special teams, the Ontario Reign fell short to the San Diego Gulls by a final score of 6-2 Saturday night at Pechanga Arena. Rookie forwards Martin Chromiak and Taylor Ward scored the tallies for Ontario, while goaltender Matt Villalta started the game and made 18 saves on 19 shots in just over 31 minutes of action.

San Diego was led by Bryce Kindopp, who scored three times in the third period, as well as Brent Gates who earned two assists.

BOX SCORE

More from Head Coach Marco Sturm and Ward below.

Both teams scored on the man-advantage in the opening period and were even at 1-1 after 20 minutes. Martin Chromiak got the offense going for the Reign just 2:12 into the first by deflecting a shot from the point by Frederic Allard past goaltender Lukas Dostal to give Ontario an early lead.

San Diego tied things up later in the frame on a loose rebound that was wrapped into the net by Blake McLaughlin at 16:21. Ontario spent much of the first on the power play, with the Gulls taking four minor penalties in the period, but were unable to do any more damage on the scoreboard while outshooting the home team 14-11.

After Villalta and his counterpart Lukas Dostal exited the game, Logan Nijhoff put San Diego in front for the first time at 13:21 by putting a rebound past David Hrenak.

Then Kindopp posted his first tally of the third on an unassisted shorthanded breakaway at 6:42, before adding another strike with a backhand shot at 10:23 to push the Gulls lead to 4-1.

Ward responded quickly for the Reign off the ensuing faceoff, scoring just 16 seconds later at 10:39 on a 2-on-1 rush off a pass by Akil Thomas.

But Ontario was unable to get any closer before surrendering another shorthanded goal off the stick of Axel Andersson. Kindopp capped off the scoring at 17:02 of the third with a tap-in power play goal.

The two teams combined for a total of 76 penalty minutes in the contest, with San Diego committing 15 infractions for 41 minutes and Ontario taking 12 penalties which totaled 35 minutes. The Gulls went 2-for-7 on the man-advantage, while Ontario ended at 1-for-10.

The Reign begin the 2022-23 regular season on Friday night at Toyota Arena against the Abbotsford Canucks at 7 p.m. PST.

Marco Sturm
On playing just one preseason game before opening night
Going into a game like this, some guys have never even played a game yet. You want to try to get your legs going. You try to do the stuff we worked on all week and try to be the best player you can be. I think there’s a lot of guys who showed me and the coaching staff what they can do what they can bring for the team.

On having a number of players participate on the power play
Well, we got scored on twice on our power play and we got two or three goals against on the penalty kill, so that has to be fixed, but lots of different guys in lots of different positions today. I think there’s some areas today we have to work on. I think there’s some guys in this locker room, who will be here, who have to be better too. The season starts in a week. There’s a short turnaround and I think the guys have been going hard all week long. They deserve to have a day off tomorrow and then regroup and try to be better on Monday.

On cleaning up mistakes before game count
There’s a few things that I think are in our control and I think the mistakes we made, especially the first 45 minutes, everything was on our tape. We’ve got to keep things simple first. I think everyone has to know their role on the team. You don’t have to do anything special. We’ve just got to play hard, play for the team, be a good teammate, and win some hockey games.

On the physicality during the game
I know we have a lot of toughness on our team, but I’m not looking at that. I want to play hockey. Yes, this is a big part of our team and our game, but at the end of the day, I just didn’t like the way we played. I think we had a good start and first 10 minutes, but in the end San Diego was just better than us. I think we still had enough good players in our lineup, but again, it was a good lesson for all of us. I’ll just have to make sure it’s not going to happen again.

Taylor Ward