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Fans came dressed in their favorite Halloween attire for Saturday’s Oct. 31 contest against the Henderson Silver Knights at Pechanga Arena San Diego. It was a more festive atmosphere in a slightly macabre way for the Nov. 1 Dia De Muertos match-up against the Colorado Eagles on Sunday that celebrates the lives of the dearly departed.
Ghosts, ghouls, vampires and other entities that go bump in the nights were on display around the arena concourse. It was a spooky good time as the Gulls picked up three out of a possible four standings points in the weekend set.
The Gulls were bidding to make it two wins in a row on home ice in Saturday’s contest after defeating the visiting San Jose Barracuda, 4-1, on Wednesday.
Sunday’s encounter, meanwhile, featured a rematch of last year’s opening round series in the Calder Cup playoffs. The Eagles eliminated the Gulls in two straight games in the best-of-three series. From San Diego’s standpoint, it was pay-back time.
Silver Knights 3, Gulls 2 (OT)
To set the stage, Gulls mascot Gulliver was dressed as a werewolf to face off the weekend of deadly delights.
Italian Olympian Damian Clara started between the pipes for the hosts. Cameron Whitehead drew the start for the Silver Knights.
Henderson received the game’s first power play. Damian promptly deflected two pucks and then several more before the penalty was killed.
The Silver Knights controlled the first half of the opening period with a 7-2 advantage in shots.
The edge grew to 12-6 and a 1-0 Henderson lead at 12:56 when Jackson Hallum netted his second goal of the season off passes from Alexander Holtz and Matyas Sapovaliv.
Two Silver Knights shots later it was 2-0 as Sapovaliv got his fourth of the season, assisted by Lukas Cormier and Antti Tuomisto.
First period shots were 22-11 in favor of Henderson.
The second period featured a reversal of fortunes as the Gulls bettered the Silver Knights with a 12-9 edge in shots and the only two goals of the period to draw even on the scoreboard at 2-2. Herman Traff and Lucas Pettersson both scored their first goals of the season.
Traff, a 2024 draft pick by the NHL New Jersey Devils (third round, 91st overall), made it 2-1 at 5:03. Assists went to Stian Solberg and Pettersson. The assists were the sixth of the season for both players.
Pettersson, a second-round pick (35th overall) by the Ducks in the 2024 draft, scored a power play goal at 10:30. Solberg and Matthew Phillips drew the assists. Solberg picked up his seventh assist of the season while Phillips notched his third helper. The goal came just four seconds into the penalty.
The game did not lack offense with 54 shots through two periods – 31 by Henderson and 23 by San Diego.
By the time the overtime was completed the teams had combined for 78 shots. The Gulls held a 12-10 edge in the scoreless third period. Hernderson had 41 shots to 35 for San Diego in regulation.
It took only 40 seconds in the five-minute three-on-three overtime period to determine a winner as Holtz scored his sixth goal of the season, assisted by Cormier and Whitehead, on the Silver Knights’ first shot in the extra period.
Clara finished with 39 saves on 42 shots while Whitehead got the win with 34 saves on 36 shots in front of 5.319 in attendance.
Pettersson called the first period a “wake-up call” for his team.
“Basically, we didn’t do many things well,” he said. “(We) switched up the lines a ittyle bit, and we found some energy going into the second (period). So, I think the second half for the second and third period, we really found some energy. Just woke the team up there after the first intermission.
“It was the point that we had going into this that they played a lot of games recently here on a road trip. So, I think we used that to our advantage in the second and third, and we should have done that in the first, too.”
“We battled back,” San Diego assistant coach Kelly Buchberger said. “We were pretty flat in the first period. We gave up two goals, adn then we came back in the second. A lot better second period and then got into overtime. Unfortunately, we lost it in the first minue, but it was a good effort coming back. We got a point, but still whenyou lose a point to Henderson, it hurts.”
Dia De Muertos
Los Gulls took the ice for Sunday’s game, dubbed “Dia De Muertos” in honor of the Day of the Dead.
It marked the Gulls’ 11th game of the season after going 4-4-2 to start the new 2026-27 campaign. The Gulls came out with a much faster pace in the first period than on Saturday. Play centered around the Colorado net for most of the opening period.
Tomas Suchanek, a call-up from Tulsa of the ECHL, started for San Diego in the net. He rose to the occasion on several shots as play started to even out. Midway through the first period the shots stood 8-4 in the Eagles’ favor in a turnaround. But the Gulls had a chance to reverse that with a power play late in the period.
The first period ended 0-0 with Colorado holding a 12-9 edge in shots.
The second period ended with a 2-0 Gulls lead on goals by Phillips (at 5:56) and Pettersson (at 13:34). Anton Wahlberg picked up his 10th assist of the season on Phillips’ fifth goal of the season. Pettersson recorded his second goal of the season and on as many nights, assisted by Corey Schueneman and Nico Myatovic.
The middle period featured the best action of the game with both goaltenders flopping around the net to make saves, especially Suchanek, who appeared to have balance problems while shuffling on his feet on the ice.
There were four penalties in the period – two for each team.
Shots were 8-7 in the Eagles’ favor for a 20-16 advantage through two periods. Suchanek preserved his shutout to that point with 20 saves.
The Eagles out-shot the Gills 12-10 in the third period and finally caught up on a pair of goals in the final 3:25 of the period.
Colorado cut its deficit in half on Jayson Megna’s fourth goal of the season at 16:35. Adam Beckman and Tristen Nielsen assisted on the power play goal.
Playing with an extra attacker with starter Ilya Nabokov on the bench, the Eagles tied the game with 1:09 remaining on the clock. Nielsen picked up his third goal of the season. Vinnie Hinostroza and Domenick Fensore collected the assists, the ninth of the season for Fensore and the sixth for Hinostroza
Through three periods, the shot totals favored the visitors 32-26. What proved to be a free-wheeling scoreless overtime period favored the shots with a 3-2 edge.
The game went to a shootout with the Gulls trailing 1-0 early before pulling out a 2-1 victory in the tiebreaker. Nielsen opened scoring for the Eagles but Suchanek stopped the next four shooters. The Gulls made up ground on goals by James Hamblin (third round) and team captain Ryan Carpenter (fifth round).
Suchanek picked up first star of the game honors with 32 saves on 34 shots while Phillips was the second star and Pettersson was the third star.
The game attracted 9,213 fans. Few left the arena in the late going,a nd constituted a loud and appreciative bunch in the overtime and shootout.
“I just think that was a really good competitive game between two strong teams,” Phillips said. “I think we did a lot of really good things and they are an elite, skilled, fast team, so they’re going to get their chances, too. I thought (our goalie) was unbelievable in net, and just a really good win for us.
“Bad periods are going to happen throughout the course of a season, but I think our last five periods now have been really good, and everyone was engaged. Crowd was awesome, so that was a fun game.”
“We played a pretty hard and full 60,” Carpenter said. “They kind of weathered the storm, and I think that started in between the pipes with Tomas. I though we’ve gotten good goaltending all year. He really stepped up for us tonight in his first game with us, s that was huge. And a little bit of adversity, giving up two goals late like that, and it was nice to find a way to come upw ith two points.”
The Gulls improved to 5-4-2 on the season with 12 standings points while Colorado saw its record to to 6-3-1-1 with 14 points (third out of 10 teams in the division).
The Gulls next head on the road for two games in Henderson, starting Friday, Nov. 6.
