The San Diego Gulls are back at Pechanga Arena San Diego tonight, and this one brings a chance to swing the season series against the San Jose Barracuda.
Puck drop is set for 6 p.m. PDT, with the game airing on AHLTV on FloHockey and on the Gulls Audio Network. It’s the second game of San Diego’s four-game homestand, and the club is hoping to make more of its time at home after opening the stretch with a 1-2-0-0 mark in its own building.
These two teams already know each other well. They opened the season with a back-to-back set at Tech CU Arena on Oct. 3-4, and each side grabbed a win.
San Diego rolled to a 5-1 victory in the first game before dropping the second, 5-4 in overtime. That overtime winner for San Jose came from former Gulls assistant captain Roland McKeown, who is set to skate in San Diego for the first time since leaving the organization.
The Gulls come in at 3-4-1-0 through eight games, good for seven points. They’ve scored 21 goals and allowed 23, while the power play is sitting at 12.1% and the penalty kill at 81.5%.
San Diego is also trying to bounce back from a 3-2 loss to the Coachella Valley Firebirds on Wednesday, Oct. 21.
That game had some offense from the Gulls’ top voices. Captain Ryan Carpenter scored his second goal of the season to open the night’s scoring, and 30 seconds later Matthew Phillips buried his fourth of the year. That goal also extended Phillips’ two-game streak to 2-0=2.
"Matthew knows everything about this league, and he pours his heart out every shift," head coach Dave Manson said. "He's got a nose for the net, and he's a very smart player. So, he has to keep doing what he's doing for us."
San Diego was still left chasing after Coachella Valley struck in the final two minutes, and that finish has only sharpened the focus heading into tonight. Phillips said the group has taken the lesson and is looking to respond before heading into its week off.
"I mean you definitely need to address how we can avoid that happening, but there's still some good things that we did, and lucky enough, we get a couple days to kind of reset and work on a few things and have another good effort for 60 on Saturday," Phillips said.
After tonight, the Gulls won’t be back until a Halloween matchup on Saturday, Oct. 31, when they host the Henderson Silver Knights again at Pechanga Arena San Diego.
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Ducks Young Core Just Flipped A Road Game That Felt Lost
The Ducks finally found a way to turn a road night that was slipping away into something useful, rallying past the Flyers 5-4 at Xfinity Mobile Arena and ending a five-game skid. It was Anaheims first comeback win of the season, and it came with a reminder of how much of the rosters future is starting to matter right now, as Leo Carlsson, AJ Greer, Judd Caulfield and Tristan Luneau all helped drive the push back into the game.
Luk Dostl steadied things with 28 saves, giving the Ducks a chance to keep answering after Philadelphia had built a lead, and Beckett Sennecke delivered the kind of timely finish a young team can build around. The win did more than stop the bleeding for one night. It also showed Anaheim can still scrape together points when the pace gets messy and the margin gets tight, which is exactly the sort of response this group has been chasing. [Read more 🡒]