The Ontario Reign (42-23-3-4) were unable to overcome an early deficit and fell to the Colorado Eagles (40-25-5-2) by a final score of 6-3 in the final game of their 2023-24 regular season schedule at Blue Arena on Sunday afternoon.
The Reign finished third in the Pacific Division standings with 91 total points and now advance to the 2024 Calder Cup Playoffs, where they will face the Bakersfield Condors in a first round best-of-3 series that is scheduled to begin in Ontario at Toyota Arena on March 24.
The Eagles got out in front early on a goal at 1:38 of the first. Peter Holland’s stick snapped on a shot from the point and the rebound went to the blade of Jack Ahcan, who banked it into the net off goaltender Erik Portillo to give Colorado a 1-0 lead.
Francesco Pinelli evened the game for Ontario with the 13th goal of his rookie season which came on a one-time feed by Alex Turcotte at 4:59. Taylor Ward also factored in on the goal with the second assist, his 20th helper of the year.
But Colorado went back in front at 11:36 of the opening frame when Nikolai Kovalenko tapped in a feed on the back door to give the Eagles a 2-1 advantage.
Riley Tufte added on to the home team’s lead with back-to-back goals less than a minute apart from each other before the end of the period at 16:29 and 17:25. Tufte scored on a shot from the right circle to make it 3-1 before netting a power play goal on a rebound in front to give the Eagles a 4-1 edge at the first intermission.
Colorado pushed the score to 5-1 with Holland’s second goal of the day just 40 seconds into the second.
Jacob Doty answered with a wrist shot underneath the bar from just inside the blue line at 9:17 for his seventh goal of the season to cut Colorado’s lead to 5-2. Nikita Pavlychev and Steven Santini recorded the assists on the strike.
Before the end of the middle period the Reign got back within two goals when Martin Chromiak threw the puck at the net from just inside the blue line and it deflected past goaltender Ivan Prosvetov. Chromiak’s 15th of the season had assists credited to Santini and Charles Hudon.
Ontario successfully killed an early 4-on-3 Colorado power play to begin the third, but moments after surrendered the Eagles’ sixth goal of the day to Spencer Smallman at 1:41.
The Reign had their first two power play opportunities of the game during the final 10 minutes of action, but were unable to capitalize on either chance to get any closer on the scoreboard.
Colorado outshot the Reign by a 35-31 margin in the contest and went 2-for-3 on the man-advantage. Prosvetov finished with 28 saves for the Eagles, while Portillo stopped 29 shots for Ontario in a losing effort.
Ontario’s 2024 Calder Cup Playoffs First Round Schedule
Game 1 – Bakersfield at Ontario – Wednesday, April 24 at 7 p.m.
Game 2 – Ontario at Bakersfield – Saturday, April 27 at 7 p.m.
Game 3* – Bakersfield at Ontario – Sunday, April 28 at 5 p.m.
*if necessary
We’ll have more coverage of the Reign’s upcoming series against Bakersfield this week here on LAKI!
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.