Led by two goals from Callahan Burke in the second period, the Colorado Eagles (22-14-4-1) skated to a second straight defeat of the Ontario Reign (22-17-3-1) by a final score of 5-2 on Friday night at Toyota Arena.
Brandt Clarke, who played in his first game with Ontario since a recall in early January, scored his eighth goal of the season in the second period, while forward Colton Young netted his first AHL tally in the third period.
Despite the Eagles holding a shot advantage of 10-4 and controlling many of the opportunities in the opening period, the game remained scoreless until late in the frame when Colorado took the lead during 4-on-4 play. Oskar Olausson beat goaltender Aaron Dell with a wrist shot under the glove on the rush to give the Eagles a 1-0 edge at 18:24.
Burke opened up the game in the second, scoring on his own rebound at 2:11 of the middle period before converting on a breakaway at 8:46. The forward went 1-on-1 with Dell, who came close enough to keeping the puck in front of the goal line that it required an official review, but video replay confirmed the goal, which made it a 3-0 game.
Clarke got Ontario on the board late in the second at 16:30, scoring from the top of the crease on a redirect of a shot by his defensive partner Kevin Connauton. Connauton has now recorded assists in four straight contests for the Reign. Alex Turcotte, who also returned to the lineup after a recall by the LA Kings, picked up a secondary helper on the play.
Ontario wasn’t able to get any closer in the third, falling further behind at 4-1 on a power play goal by Peter Holland at 8:22.
Young got a piece of a shot by Santini from in between the circles and saw the puck deflect by Colorado netminder Justus Annunen to make it a 4-2 game less than a minute later at 9:19. His first strike, which came in the attacker’s third contest with the Reign after signing a tryout agreement late in January, also had a secondary assist from TJ Tynan, his 30th helper of the campaign.
The Eagles put the nail in the coffin with an empty-net goal by Cedric Pare with 23 seconds remaining in the third.
Colorado had the lone power play goal of the contest, going 1-for-4 on the man-advantage while holding Ontario to a 0-for-4 mark. Annunen earned the win by successfully keeping out 30 of the Reign’s 32 shot attempts on goal. Dell turned out 16 shots in a losing effort during his second appearance of the season for Ontario.
Marco Sturm
Alex Turcotte
The Reign are back at home on Saturday for a matchup with the Calgary Wranglers at Toyota Arena that is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.
Rules for Blog Commenting
Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.
Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.