The San Diego Gulls are heading back to the Calder Cup playoffs after defeating the Bakersfield Condors, 7-3, in a road matchup on Saturday, April 11, at Dignity Health Arena to clinch the seventh and final berth in the Pacific Division.
The win, combined with a Tucson loss to Colorado, allowed the Gulls to take flight in the postseason for the first time since the 2021-22 season. It marks the fifth playoff berth in Gulls AHL history. The Gulls (33-24-8-4, 78 points) can finish as high as fourth place in the Pacific Division with a maximum of 84 points with three regular season games to play.
“We went into this year, and the thing we’ve kept saying is, we’re a group of winners with something to prove,” San Diego head coach Matt McIlvane said. “Earning the opportunity to play in the playoffs is a big step for everybody, and it’s been a lot of ups and downs to be able to get here, but I think it’s a cherry on top of all the growth that we’ve made as a club over the last bit. These guys, they’ve earned it.”
The Gulls had a chance to clinch a playoff berth on Friday but dropped a 5-3 decision to the Condors while the Roadrunners prevailed in a must-win game in Colorado.
How they made it happen in Saturday’s decisive contest:
Damian Clara earned the first victory of his AHL career, stopping 36-of-39 shots in his first start of the season after coming in from Brynas of the Swedish Hockey League.
Matthew Phillips scored his 15th goal, his sixth on the power play, to move his point streak to four games (three goals, three assists). With 50 points (15 goals, 35 assists), he now has a four straight 50-point seasons in campaigns where he played a majority of the season in the AHL. He co-leads Gulls skaters in assists and ranks second in points.
Justin Bailey netted his team-leading 24th goal of the campaign, his fourth goal in as many games and sixth in his last 11 games (six goals, tyhree assists). He now has nine game-winning goals this season, which leads all AHL skaters. His 24 goals are fourth-most in a single season in Gulls AHL history.
Stian Solberg eclipsed the 20-point mark with his 11th goal (a shorthanded empty-netter) and 10th assist, giving him 21 points this season (11 goals, 10 assists). He leads all rookie blueliners in goals and ranks tied for 11th in scoring. His is one goal shy of tying the team record for goals by a rookie defenseman (12).
Tristan Luneau earned a goal (empty net) and an assist, as he continues to lead all AHL defensemen with 27 points (six goals, 21 assists) and assists since the All-Star break (Feb. 13). He ranks tied for fourth and third among all AHL skaters in each respective category.
Nathan Gaucher scored his sixth goal in four games, his 15th of the campaign. Over his last seven games, Gaucher has posted nine points (seven goals, two assists).
Nico Myatovic scored his seventh goal and earned his 12th assist, giving him six points (two goals, four assists) over his last five games.
Yegor Sidorov scored his 15th goal of the season to open the scoring.
Judd Caulfield crossed the 20-assist plateau for the first time in his AHL career with two helpers, giving him 21. Caulfield now has 38 points (17 goals, 21 assists) on the season, which extends his AHL career high.
Matt Basgall collected his first professional point and assist in his professional debut.
Sasha Pastujov tallied his 35th assist of the season, which co-leads Gulls skaters. Pastujov leads Gulls skaters with 56 points (21 goals, 35 points), which ranks tied for fifth in single-season points in Gulls AHL history. Pastujov has 19 points i(nine goals, 10 assists) in his last 17 games since March 1. He ranks tied for eighth among all AHL skaters in points in that span.
Ryan Carpenter earned his 28th assist, giving him eight points (two goals, six assists) in his last eight games.
Roland McKeown picked up his 19th assist. He ranks second among Gulls blueliners in scoring with 24 points (five goals, 19 assists).
Jan Mysak earned an assist, his 13th of the season.
The Gulls return to Pechanga Arena San Diego for their penultimate home game of the season Wednesday night against the Tucson Roadrunners (7 p.m. PDT). San Diego plays at regular season division winner Ontario on Friday, April 17, and host Coachella Valley on Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 18.
The order of finish in the division is still undecided with Colorado (second place), Henderson (third place), Coachella Valley (fourth place), Bakersfield (fifth place) and San Jose (sixth place) separated by just seven standings points with two regular season games remaining on the 2025-26 schedule. Four points separate three teams: Coachella Valley, Bakersfield and San Jose.
San Diego players were obviously elated – and relieved – at finally adding their name to the shrinking list of playoff-bound teams.
“I think just feels like a tight knit group,” Gulls captain Ryan Carpenter said. “Guys play for each other. It was a couple weeks ago, that big Tucson game at home seemed to really propel us and give us some confidence and momentum. I think when guys play for each other in pro hockey, it’s tough, right? Because guys want to make money, and guys want to be in the NHL, and everyone’s in different spots in their career. So, when guys can try to put that aside and play for one another and have fun together, you tend to get the results.
“It seems like in my two years here, we have a close knit group, guys that guys that love playing for each other. And we needed some help tonight, Tucson lost in in overtime, but it was a great way for (Damian) Clara to get his first pro win. It was huge. He made some big saves for us, especially in the third and it was just a nice way to close it out.
“We’re confident group. We were a lot happier the way we responded compared to the night before. We ultimately just wanted to play a more detailed game, a more 60-minute game. It was 2-1 early. It was nice to get one on the power play. It’s a big, big play by (Matthew Phillips). And then I think it just kept rolling from there. But I think it was, you know, a combination of guys getting to the inside, the hard areas. We just felt like we were a little bit harder tonight. Our D were getting shots through, and it was nice to get rewarded.”
“I think the message is, thanks,” McIlvane said. “There’s a lot of people that put in a lot of work to have this accomplishment, and you enter the next round with a level playing field where everybody’s got a shot and the only thing you can carry with you is the lessons that you’ve carried and learned along the way. So, we’ve had our fair share, and we’re proud of our growth. We’ll get an opportunity to enjoy this, and then we’ll get back to work.”
Carpenter said the playoff drive isn’t necessarily over quite yet.
“I think anything can happen when you get in,” the Gulls captain said. “I think these next three games, you want to keep building. You don’t want to take your foot off the gas and develop bad habits going into the playoffs. So, yeah, it’s nice to naturally, maybe take your foot off the gas, but we don’t want to, so have a day off tomorrow and get back to practicing. We want to be able to catch some teams and move up in the standings and at the same time just build off of, you know, a better, full 60 minutes that we had (on Saturday).”
The 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs will begin the week of April 20. Opponent, dates and times will be confirmed and announced when details become available. The Gulls’ Calder Cup Playoffs First Round schedule will be released by the AHL at a future date. The 2025-26 regular season ends on Sunday, April 19.
American Hockey League Playoff Format:
The Calder Cup Playoffs will consist of 23 teams. The playoff field will include the top six finishers in the eight-team Atlantic Division, the top five finishers each in the seven-team North and Central Divisions, and the top seven teams in the 10-team Pacific Division. The regular season Pacific Division winner will earn the top seed and a bye to the Pacific Division Semifinals. The teams finishing second and seventh, third and sixth, and fourth and fifth in the division will play in the First Round of the playoffs.
The winners of each opening-round series will be re-seeded for the Division Semifinals, with the number one seed facing the lowest remaining seed and the two remaining teams facing each other. The winners of each semifinal will advance to the Pacific Division Final, where teams will compete to advance to face the winner of the Central Division Final in the Western Conference Finals. The winner of the Western Conference Finals will advance to face the winner of the Eastern Conference Finals in the Calder Cup Finals. Home-ice advantage in all series will be granted to the team with more points in the regular-season standings.
Depending on seeding, the Gulls can host a maximum of 16 home games throughout the postseason. San Diego can finish anywhere between fourth and seventh in the Pacific Division.
A round-by-round breakdown of the potential games is listed below:
Pacific Division First Round: Best-of-three series with a maximum of two home games.
Pacific Division Semifinals: Best-of-five series with a maximum of three home games.
Pacific Division Finals: Best-of-five series with a maximum of three home games.
Western Conference Finals: Best-of-seven series with a maximum of four home games.
Calder Cup Finals: Best-of-seven series with a maximum of four home games.
DISAPPOINTING 5-1 HOME ICE LOSS TO TUCSON LOCKS GULLS INTO NO. 7 PLAYOFF SEED
The San Diego Gulls fell 5-1 to the Tucson Roadrunners in their penultimate home game of the regular season Wednesday at Pechanga Arena. With the loss, San Diego is now locked into the No. 7seed in the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs for the Pacific Division.
The Gulls (33-25-8-4) will meet the No. 2 seed in the opening round of the division playoffs in a best-of-three series with the No. 2 seed hosting. The Colorado Eagles and Henderson Silver Knights are separated by four standings points with two regular season games remaining the decide the No. 2 seed.
Should the teams tie with an equal number of points, the Silver Knights would claim the tiebreaker. The Eagles need a win and an overtime or shootout loss by Henderson to capture the No. 2 spot. Regardless, both teams will have home ice advantage in the opening round.
The Silver Knights (39-20-7-4) are 9-0-1 in their last 10 games while Colorado (41-18-6-5) is 5-3-2.
The Ontario Reign has locked up the No. 1 seed in the division and a bye in the opening round.
The No. 2 seed will host the No. 7 seed while the No. 3 seed will host the No. 6 seed and the No. 4 seed will host the No. 5 seed.
The Coachella Valley Firebirds are currently the No. 3 seed but are only four points ahead of the No. 6 seed Bakersfield Condors in the division standings entering the final two games. Currently, Bakersfield is one point ahead of San Jose. The playoff seeding may not be decided until the final regular season games are finalized.
Tuscon (32-28-10) will finished eighth out of the 10 teams in the Pacific Division.
With the Gulls having sewn up a postseason berth, it wasn’t particularly surprising the team would come out flat, or at least, take a while to get back into the competitive flow of attempting a move farther up the standings.
But the hosts were out-played from the start, falling behind 2-0 through the opening 20 minutes on goals by Tucson’s Jalen Luypen and Michal Kunc. San Diego halved the scored to 2-1 on Matthew Phillips’ 16th goal of the season at the 27-second mark of the second period but the Roadrunners ended the period with two more rapid-fire goals to take a 4-1 lead on the scoreboard. Brandon Holt scored his first goal of the season at 43 seconds – just 16 seconds after Phillips – and Owen Allard picked up his eighth goal of the season at 3:53 to crush any momentum for the hosts.
Allard recorded his second goal of the game at the 6:32 mark of the third period and the game played itself out there with six shots by the Gulls and five shots by the Roadrunners in the final 20 minutes. San Diego out-shot Tucson 24-21 despite finishing four goals in the hole.
The game was a reversal in all aspects from the teams’ earlier meeting at Pechanga Arena two weeks earlier in a 3-0 Gulls’ whitewashing.
“We’re all pretty disappointed in that game,” said Phillips, who moved his point streak to five games (four goals, three assists) and co-leads the team’s skaters in assists and ranks second overall with 51 points (16 goals, 35 assists). “I just think we were flat from the get-go. We didn’t execute. We didn’t really play fast. We just weren’t really our identity today. And you know what? That’s going to happen. Obviously, we’re not happy about it, but all we can do is just correct that and have a good effort on Friday (in Ontario).
“We have a ton of good players here. I think collectively as a team, it’s kind of taken us until maybe the last third of the year to click and find some good chemistry within our lineup. I think a lot of guys are feeling good about the game offensively. Falling into that category, the power play has been pretty consistent the second half of the season, so feeling better as the year’s going on.”
Sam Colangelo and Stian Solberg picked up assists on Phillips’ goal. The assist was the 24th of the season for Colangelo and the 11th for Solberg. Colangelo has seven points (one goal, six assists) in his last five games and 35 points (11 goals, 24 assists) for the season. Solberg extended his season point total to 22 (11 goals, 11 assists).
Damian Clara, making his second AHL start, stopped 16 of 21 shots in absorbing the loss after posting a win in his opening game with the Gulls on Saturday.
The Gulls finished 0-fo-6 on the power play. The hosts out-shot Tucson in every period in absorbing the setback.
Friday’s road contest is the last of the regular season for San Diego, which hosts Coachella Valley on Saturday in its regular season finale with much still at stake for the Firebirds.
“Well, I think you want to learn from every experience,” San Diego assistant coach Michael Babcock said. “We obviously weren’t as good as we could be, for sure. We’ll go back, we’ll analyze and prioritize, and then we got to get right back on the horse going Friday. Quick turnaround, but that’s our job again, analyze, prioritize, and we’ll go from there.
“We just want to make sure that our habits are really good. A lot of our details in terms of just how we play structurally, what we can continue to hone-in on, and how we play our Gulls brand of hockey, I think that’s going to be really, really important. We’re continuing to talk about thoughts and then we got two games to showcase it and fine tune it for next week.”
“We just kind of need to get back to what has gotten us to this point to be in a playoff spot to be successful,” Phillips said. “It’s not as simple as just wipe this one. But honestly, I think we kind of need to do that. We have two games left to get ready for the playoffs, and we’re just looking forward to turning the page here and having a way better effort and more focused effort on Friday.”
