REIGN FINAL – ONT 4 , TUC 1 – Lord, Wright, Booth

The Ontario Reign (36-16-1-1) defeated the Tucson Roadrunners (24-21-8-0) Wednesday night by a final score of 4-1 in in front of 5,987 fans at Toyota Arena. The Reign will host the Henderson Silver Knights Wednesday at 7 p.m. PST.

The Reign extended their win streak to a season high five-games to capture sole possession of first place in the Pacific Division with 18 games remaining. Andre Lee skated in his 200^th AHL game, all with Ontario, scoring his team leading 22^nd goal of the year, eighth on the power-play and finished with an assist for his seventh multi-point game of the season. Jared Wright scored twice extending his goal streak to three-games where he’s scored five times. Martin Chromiak scored on the power-play giving the Reign a 1-0 setting a new single season high with his 40^th point.

 The score was even at 1-1 through the opening 20 minutes of play as the Reign held the edge in shots 10-3. Ontario went on a five-on-three power-play for 81 seconds and it would be Martin Chromiak (18^th) scoring 15 seconds into the opportunity from Andre Lee and Logan Brown giving the Reign a 1-0 lead with 2:11 to play in the frame. From the top of the right circle Brown fed Lee below the circle where he then found Chromiak at the left circle sending a shot short side past Villalta. Just 92 seconds later Andrew Aggozino provided the equalizer beating Portillo upstairs on a short-handed breakaway.

There was no scoring in the second period as the Reign outshot the Roadrunners 9-7. Ontario went to the penalty box three times in the frame while Tucson went twice.

Ontario received their sixth power-play of the game just 1:59 into the third period and Andre Lee (22^nd) cashed in from Cole Guttman and Glenn Gawdin giving the Reign a 2-1 lead at 3:02. From the center point Gawdin fed Guttman inside the right side of the blue line where he sifted a shot towards the cage where Lee deflected it home near the crease. 15 seconds after the goal Koehn Ziemmer dropped the gloves with Miko Matikka. Then 35 seconds after Lee’s goal, Jared Wright (16^th) added to the lead from Angus Booth and Francesco Pinelli making it 3-1. Pinelli at the right hash marks jammed the puck to Booth at the point. From there Booth sent a seeing eye shot towards the cage that hit the crossbar and dropped on the goal line where Wright was able to get the final touch. Then with 2:14 remaining Wright (17^th) provided the insurance tally with an empty net score from Jack Millar securing the 4-1 win.

Erik Portillo made 18 saves on 19 shots in the victory while Matthew Villalta suffered the loss turning aside 23 of 26. Ontario went 2-for-6 on the power-play and 3-for-3 on the penalty kill.

BOX SCORE

Postgame thoughts from Andrew Lord, Jared Wright, and Angus Booth.

Lord
On tonight’s 5th consecutive win
Finding a way. I think obviously, we’re a little depleted, couple called up there, couple injuries. Nice to see some of our guys that are in and out of the lineup get in and contribute a little bit. I thought it was a good win against a good team that’s playing really hard right now.

On Booth, Connors, and Wright making their NHL debut on Monday
Obviously, this is my first year at this level and sort of one of the first experiences. To see all three go up on the same day and take warm ups, it was really special. We were jumping around like kids up top, watching it. When Booth put that one home, we needed to settle down a bit. So it was a lot of fun. Honestly, I think probably the best thing is Booth and Wright come back down and don’t miss a beat.

Wright
On his family watching his NHL debut
My whole family was watching at my grandparents’ house, and I feel like your first game, it’s more than yourself. It’s just everything that came before you. My parents, my grandparents, they poured everything into my hockey career, and I was very, very lucky that I had that. If I didn’t have them, I definitely wouldn’t be in the spot I was today. So just very grateful for them.

On reflecting on the call up
I think I still can’t believe it. It’s just been such a long journey. I mean, it’s the NHL, it’s what everyone dreams of. I think earlier, if you would ask me in my hockey career, it was just to play varsity hockey at St Thomas Academy. And then involved to playing at Denver, and then I wanted to win a national championship, and then somehow, by the luck of God, I’ve been able to make it to for the NHL when I got called up. It’s just a very big blessing and I’ve just had a huge supporting cast growing up.

Booth
On reflecting on his NHL debut
I had the whole day yesterday to think about it. A couple talks with my brother, my parents, just like how special that moment is. I think I’m still not realizing to the full extent what happened or how it happened, but it is awesome.

On the team’s success
I think we have great leadership, great coaching. They always say, great teams find a way to win. So we’re always in the mix, and then we’ll pull away when the time comes. But I think we play a gritty game and good defensively. Portillo kind of saved our butt a couple times today, so shout out to him. It’s a lot of fun playing here and winning is always more fun.