REIGN FINAL – ONT 1 , COL 6 – Lord

 The Ontario Reign (15-8-1-0) fell to the Colorado Eagles (17-6-0-1) Saturday night by a final score of 6-1 in front of 5,089 fans at Blue Arena. The Reign will play in Bakersfield on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. (PST).

Glenn Gawdin scored for his second straight game, but it was the lone tally for Ontario as their win streak ended at four games. Cole Guttman had the secondary assist on the second period score stretching his point-streak to eight-games. Ontario allowed a power-play goal and two four-on-four tallies in the loss as Isaiah Saville made 27 saves.

Jayson Megna made the Teddy Bears fly giving the Eagles a 1-0 lead with 3:54 remaining in the first period. The two teams would head off to the dressing room and resume play about 40 minutes later after the Teddy Bear collection and an ice cut. They played the remainder of the first period after the break as Tristan Nielsen scored a power-play goal at 19:21 as Colorado led 2-0 through 20 minutes. Shots were 15-3 Colorado in the stanza.

The second period began two minutes after the conclusion of the first and at 3:40 Alex Barré-Boulet stretched the lead to 3-0 with a four-on-four goal for the Eagles. Just 2:10 later Glenn Gawdin (6^th) cut the deficit back down to a pair with his third goal of the series setup by Jack Hughes and Cole Guttman who has a point in eight straight. Guttman from center ice flung the puck down the middle lane into the offensive zone where Hughes met it above the crease and slid it back for a quick one-timer from Gawdin. Taylor Makar gave the Eagles a 4-1 advantage with 6:57 to play in the middle frame on the Eagles second four-on-four score of the night. Ontario was outshot 11-6 in the period.

Jayson Megna made it 5-1 at 5:35 of the third period with his second of the night before Alex Barré-Boulet potted his second of the contest at 11:13 making it 6-1. The Reign outshot the Eagles 9-7 in the final 20 minutes of play.

Isaiah Saville suffered the loss making 27 saves on 33 shots while Isak Posch picked up the win making 19 saves on 20 shots. Ontario went 0-for-4 on the power-play while Colorado was 1-for-2.

BOX SCORE

Postgame thoughts from Andrew Lord.

Lord
On loss
Yeah, was a tough night. Overall we were flat for a lot of the night at the same time, they were very good. They upped the ante a little bit. Their execution, their pace, was that much better, and ours was, you know, 10% worse than last night. That’s a big swing, obviously, you know, from there  still after the first we’re got a fighting chance. And even at 3-1 I think we had a fighting chance there. Maybe the five on three could have been a game changer.  Just not enough from our group. They’re a heck of a hockey team.

Allowing three four-on-four goals in the last two games
That’s been a huge achilles heel this weekend. For sure, something we’re going to have to look at, definitely some execution, definitely the last one, a little bit of a line change situation there. It’s a little bit more space, a little bit more one on one game, which I’d argue probably goes in their favor at times, but at the same time, we got more than enough depth and quality to to be okay in those situations. We all got to be better.

Heading into this week
We have to get some rest, recover, and reset. We need a couple good practice days then go again.  We’ve been playing great hockey as of late. We know the keys to what makes us good, which is buy in and execution. I know we’ll be a lot better this week.