A season-high eight goals highlighted by a hat trick performance from forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan propelled the Ontario Reign (23-7-3-2) past the San Jose Barracuda (14-22-1-0) at Toyota Arena 8-5 on Monday night. Nine Reign skaters recorded multiple points in the win, including Samuel Fagemo, who had two third period goals, as well as linemates Austin Wagner and Brett Sutter who each netted a goal and an assist.
Ontario concluded the month of January with a record of 9-1-1-1 in 12 contests and improved its overall points percentage to 0.729 on the season. The Reign also continued their impressive run of play at home, winning their third straight game in Ontario, and picking up a point in their eighth straight contest at Toyota Arena, where they’re 14-2-2-2 on the year.
More from Reign Assistant Coach Chris Hajt, Anderson-Dolan and Fagemo below.
After San Jose opened up the scoring on its first shot of the game just 40 seconds in, Anderson-Dolan countered with a quick response to tie things up at 1-1 20 seconds later at exactly 1:00 of the opening period.
Before the end of the first frame, Ontario had seized a two-goal advantage after strikes by Wagner and Alex Turcotte. Wagner, who has now scored in all four games against the Barracuda this season, scored his ninth of the season on a backhand from the front of the net at 2:41 to make it 2-1. Then Turcotte scored for the second straight game, getting his fifth tally of the year on a redirect of a shot by defender Markus Phillips.
San Jose got one closer at 5:40 of the second on a goal by Jayden Halbgewachs to make it 3-2 but once again Anderson-Dolan had an immediate answer, knocking a feed by Martin Frk into an open net for his second strike of the night at 7:36. Anderson-Dolan completed the hat trick less than a minute later, scoring on the power play with a redirection of a shot by defender Jordan Spence.
Sutter added on to make it 6-2 at 15:46 of the middle frame by getting a piece of a shot by Aidan Dudas that found its way through goaltender Sam Harvey.
The teams traded goals in the third, but the Ontario lead was never in question. First Halbgewachs got his second goal of the night to make it 6-3, but Fagemo scored at 15:15 to make sure his team was back in front by four once more. Late San Jose tallies by Patrick Holway and Jake McGrew in the final four minutes made it the highest-scoring game the Reign have played this season before Fagemo added the final tally in the last minute. Both Fagemo goals had just one assist that went to Gabriel Vilardi.
Other notable offensive performances from Ontario skaters included two-assist nights by Dudas, Phillips, Helge Grans and TJ Tynan.
Each team had one conversion on the power play during the contest, both finishing at 1-for-3 on the man-advantage. Goaltender Lukas Parik earned the win for the Reign with 19 saves, while Harvey made 22 stops in the loss for San Jose.
Chris Hajt
On what worked well for his team offensively in the win
We had a lot of goals that were around their net, you think of Jaret’s power play goal where he tipped it, Fagemo at the end, little plays like that are important in getting goals in front of the net. You always want to be there and migrate there and have first or second opportunities and we were able to get some tonight.
On his team being able to respond quickly after allowing a goal
It’s very important. First shift of the game they score a goal and we score a goal right back to get back to even. You don’t want teams to have momentum, you want to get it back as quickly as you can. It’s just like a power play, you want to keep momentum and the job of the penalty kill is to kill a penalty but also create momentum for your team. Through the course of the game momentum is very important so good on us to when they scored, score right away, but also don’t want to give up that many goals either.
On what he’s seeing in Anderson-Dolan’s game
Jaret’s a terrific person first and foremost. Hard-working, character, he just works on his game every day and it’s nice to see him rewarded with that. He had some really nice goals, really nice plays. Went on that line with Tynan and Frk tonight and they had some chemistry and you can tell they play at a high pace and Jaret was a big part of that tonight and I’m happy for him.
Jaret Anderson-Dolan
On what it took for the team to score eight goals
It was a good team effort, obviously a lot of offense and that comes from just executing plays and a lot of guys were around the net tonight, not just myself so that’s our identity as a team is getting to the net and it showed well tonight.
On how he is feeling, currently playing left wing
Feeling pretty good, it’s a little bit of an adjustment but I’ve played there a little bit before so it’s just almost less work in the defensive zone so it allows me to have a burst of speed coming up the ice so I’ve been trying to focus on that and it’s been pretty seamless, especially when I’ve been playing with the guys I’m playing with.
On how it felt to get his first professional hat trick
It felt great. It was great plays by all my teammates to get those goals and I think a little luck from Sutter being my roommate for pregame there. I think it rubbed off on me after his 1,000th game so I’m pretty lucky to be playing with those guys and it was a pretty fun night.
Samuel Fagemo
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