REIGN FINAL – Reign 1, Silver Knights 3 – Sturm, Moverare

The Henderson Silver Knights (7-15-0-1) used two shorthanded goals to get past the Ontario Reign (12-7-0-1) Wednesday night at Toyota Arena by a 3-1 score. Cal Petersen made the start for Ontario and kept his team in the game, stopping 26 shots in a losing effort.

The lone goal for the Reign came from captain TJ Tynan on the power play late in the third period. Henderson’s Laurent Brossoit earned the first star on the night, keeping Ontario off the scoreboard until the final minutes with 30 saves.

BOX SCORE

More from head coach Marco Sturm and defenseman Jacob Moverare below.

While Ontario had the first power play of the game in the first period, it was the Silver Knights who were able to convert, scoring shorthanded on a 2-on-1 with Gage Quinney one-timing a pass by Sheldon Rempal to make it a 1-0 game.

Later in the first the Reign came inches away from tying the game when Tynan hit the post during the team’s second power play opportunity. With his team behind early, Petersen kept it a one-goal game by keeping out the rest of the chances Henderson put toward the crease.

The second period was a different story than the first and saw Ontario control play for a majority of the frame, outshooting the Silver Knights 13-7. But the Reign were once again unable to solve Brossoit and headed into the third period trailing by a goal.

Henderson got some more breathing room for themselves at 1:23 of the final period when Kaedan Korczak netted the team’s second shorthanded goal of the game to make it 2-0.

Ontario spent the rest of the third playing from behind, but got within a shot of the Silver Knights when Tynan scored his second of the season from Quinton Byfield and Jordan Spence with 1:33 to play in the contest. The goal came during a power play in which the Reign sent Petersen to the bench in favor of an extra skater and a 6-on-4 advantage.

But Ontario was unable to get any closer after the goal, surrendering an empty-net strike to Quinney 41 seconds later with less than a minute left in the game.

Tynan’s tally was the lone power play strike of the contest, which saw the Reign go 1-for-6 on the man-advantage while killing off all six of Henderson’s chances. Ontario held a slight edge in shots on goal by a 31-29 margin.

Marco Sturm
On his team’s slow start
That was the most disappointing part of tonight’s game: the start, because we talked about it. I thought we had a good week. I thought we were all rested, and our mind and body was just not there, that’s what was most disappointing factor.

On what went wrong in the game for Ontario
I think in general, we are a better team with the lead. You get behind by one goal, and what’s not a big deal and should not be a big deal, but [the goal] came on our power play too. For some reason, sometimes we start to panic. I think we have quality in our lineup and enough good players who can handle a little bit of pressure and adversity, but tonight we repeated mistakes. We didn’t deserve to win tonight because of the start and special teams. I thought Cal [Petersen] was good today. He gave us a chance, but it was all on us.

On his decision to make in-game changes to the forward lines
I was trying to find some kind of life and that’s why I put some guys back together. I was hoping just to get more out of it. I was hoping to get more out of Tynan’s line and put Kupari on the right. Those are the things coaches try to do to get the team going a little bit, but it didn’t work today.

Jacob Moverare

The Reign travel to Tucson on Thursday in preparation for a two-game series with the Roadrunners this weekend, beginning Friday night at 6 p.m. inside the Tucson Convention Center.