REIGN FINAL – Reign 1, Silver Knights 5 – Hicketts, Sturm

Three power play goals, including a pair from Gage Quinney, gave the Henderson Silver Knights (2-5-0-0) a 5-1 win over the Ontario Reign (1-4-0-0) on Sunday afternoon at Toyota Arena.

Ontario’s lone strike came from Aatu Jamsen, who recorded his first North American professional goal at 15:35 of the first period during the losing effort with assists from Joe Hicketts and Jacob Doty.

Pheonix Copley got the start in goal for the Reign and turned aside 17 shots in the contest.

Quinney netted his first of the night on the power play at 8:18 of the opening period to put Henderson in front 1-0.

Jamsen had the game tied up at 1-1 before intermission, but Henderson’s Tanner Laczynski got the visitors to the lead once again at 4:10 of the second, making it 2-1 with another power play goal. Then just 2:38 later, Raphael Lavoie opened the game up with his first goal of the year and the Silver Knights were out to a 3-1 advantage.

Quinney tacked on his second of the night at 10:31 of the middle period, once again scoring on the man-advantage to make it 4-1 before the second intermission.

Mason Morelli had the lone goal of the third for the Silver Knights, scoring during 4-on-4 play at 7:30 of the final frame.

Henderson had a total of nine power play opportunities in the contest, converting on three of them in their second victory of the year. In contrast, Ontario was 0-for-3 on the man-advantage.

Goaltender Akira Schmid stopped 31 shots in the crease for the Silver Knights to earn the win.

Below, hear from Reign captain Joe Hicketts and Marco Sturm after the loss –

Joe Hicketts
On what it will take for the team to improve
I think it’s starts with coming out ready to go. I think we’ve gone down a goal, at least in every game we’ve played. So that’s on me as a captain and the leadership group, to make sure the guys are ready to go. Our special teams, we got to improve on that. We have one power play goal gave up a shorty against in the first five. So that’s not even and our penalty kill needs improvement. And you know what? I thought take wins. They had four special team goals, and that was the difference in the game. We let them get a couple power play goals there to start, and then they kind of got some momentum from that. So it’s going to be about getting back to the basics. We’re going to have to work hard. We can’t reach. We’re going to have to check with our feet. And then from there, we just gotta get back to playing with some confidence. I think we’re a little shook right now. We haven’t scored a whole lot of goals. We got to get back to get to the net and pucks there. And you know what? It’s gonna take a greasy one to get us out. One to get us out of this. And it’s early, we know that. But as we said in the room there a minute ago, it’s gonna take a team effort to get us out of there. It’s not gonna be one guy, you know, making a highlight reel play. We’re gonna have to get dirty and we have to bang an ugly one in, and hopefully it gets into turn the tide.

On the desire for better results
Well, I think there’s no doubt that we want better results. We shut out our home opener, came back one the next day, and then, you know, 4-1, 5-2, and another 5-1 loss. So I think that goes back to definitely not the start, obviously not the start, but a lot of it, I think, is obviously we care. Maybe we’re caring too much, and we’re gripping our stick a little harder. And that’s just going to get back to going back to the basics. It’s going to take a greasy one. It’s going to take the puck going off someone’s butt, off a shin pad. It’s gonna take something like that to get us going.

On special teams
I could tell you we have we’re one for 21 and then come in today and open two, so one for 23 so I think a lot of guys could tell you stat, the penalty kill gave up three tonight, and that can’t happen, and our power plays got to give us momentum. Coming out of the game in Coachella, I thought it was a lot better considering a lot of odd man rushes for the show handed team. But again, you just got to find a way to get a greasy one, give get someone to the net, and there’s, we’ve had a couple looks. It’s just, right now, it’s not going in. We got to stick with it. We got to dig in. We got the players in there. And I think that’s the biggest message to our team, is we have the personnel. We know we can do it. You know, we’ve seen guys do it, whether it’s at the junior level, at the pro level, in the last couple years now we’re just trying to piece together. And you know what it will come.

Marco Sturm

The Reign and Silver Knights will have a rematch on Friday in Henderson at Lee’s Family Forum beginning at 7 p.m.