The Ontario Reign’s skid kept rolling Saturday night, and this one stung a little more because it came at home against a team sitting below them in the AHL Pacific Division.
San Jose handed Ontario a 3-2 overtime loss, stretching the Reign’s slide to five straight games. Cam Lund ended it just 17 seconds into the 5-minute, 3-on-3 overtime period, turning what had been a tight, back-and-forth game into another frustrating finish for Ontario.
The loss dropped the Reign to 1-5 at home this season. That’s a rough number on its own, but it looks even harsher when stacked against last year, when Ontario set a franchise record with 10 home losses over the entire season. Now, just 12 games into this year, they’re already halfway to that mark.
Ontario did grab the first punch. Taylor Ward scored his third goal of the season midway through the first period, with Cole Guttman and Jack Hughes picking up the assists.
But the lead didn’t last long. Brenden Hoffmann tied it early in the second, with Carson Wetsch and Roland McKeown helping out.
The Reign answered right back. Just 19 seconds after Kaleb Lawrence returned from the penalty box after a roughing call, he scored his second goal of the season to put Ontario back in front.
“I think he’s (Lawrence) come in with the right mindset,” Ontario coach Andrew Lord said. “He’s worked every day; consistency and practice has really been there, seems ready to play every night.
He’s moving his feet well, he’s using his size. He’s had some good fights and the puck play is pretty good right now.”
That edge disappeared again late in the second period when Donavan Houle beat Reign goalie Carter George at 17:46 to make it 2-2. Neither team could break through in the third, and then Lund needed only a few seconds in overtime to finish it.
The result pushed Ontario down to eighth in the Pacific Division at 5-6-1-0 with 11 points. San Jose moved to 5-6-0-0 with 10 points and sits ninth.
Both teams went 0-for-1 on the power play. George stopped 23 shots and fell to 2-1-1-0 on the season, while Eric Comrie made 22 saves for the Barracuda.
Ontario heads to Abbotsford next for a weekend set against the Canucks, with games Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 4 p.m.
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Reign Let Another Lead Slip In Brutal One-Goal Loss
Ontario had this one in hand more than once at Toyota Arena, but the Reign could not turn either lead into a win and ended up on the wrong side of a 3-2 overtime loss to San Jose. Carter George made 23 saves for Ontario, while Eric Comrie stopped 22 for the Barracuda in a game that kept swinging back and forth before the final break.
The frustrating part for Ontario was how familiar the script felt: a lead, a response, then another lead, then another answer. San Jose kept finding a way to level things up, and the Reign were left chasing the result after overtime began, a tough finish for a team that had chances to close it out and instead watched the points slip away in a hurry. [Read more 🡒]
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What makes the discussion tricky is the cost of doing business when both teams have reasons to be careful. Analysts David Pagnotta and Jeff Marek have pointed to the appeal of a move like this, but also the hesitation on each side, since the Canucks are weighing their own long-term direction and the Kings would be dealing from the heart of their core. For now, it remains exactly that, a possibility being revisited rather than a deal on the finish line. [Read more 🡒]
Panthers Are Getting A Young Spark At The Perfect Time
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For Los Angeles, the bigger takeaway was how quickly the attack found its rhythm with Kempe driving the night from the start. The Kings have been looking for that sort of finishing punch, and on a busy scoreboard night around the league, Kempes performance stood out as the kind of spark that can change the tone of a teams week. [Read more 🡒]