The San Diego Gulls have 10 games remaining on their regular season 2025-26 American Hockey League schedule. The end goal, as in every season, is to secure a Calder Cup playoff berth. As of yet, the Pacific Division team is still stirring the pot to make it happen.
The Gulls enter this weekend’s two-game set in Canada against the last place Abbotsford Canucks three points ahead of the Tucson Roadrunners for possession of the division’s final playoff berth. The Roadrunners have one game in hand on the Gulls, meaning the Arizona team could pull to within one point with a win in the extra contest.
The top seven teams in the Pacific Division qualify for postseason play. The Gulls have a bit more work to do to climb farther up the division standings. They trail the Henderson Silver Knights and Bakersfield Condors, both vying for fifth/sixth place by percentage points, by four standings points and are five points behind the fourth place Coachella Valley Firebirds.
The top finisher in the division receives a bye in the first round of the playoffs, meaning the No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 finishers in the standings get to host games in the first round.
The Gulls sit 10 points behind the third place San Jose Barracuda, 12 points behind the second place Colorado Eagles and 15 points behind the division leading Ontario Reign.
Those three teams might be unreachable at present, but a home playoff game isn’t. The Calgary Wranglers (ninth place) and Canucks (10th place) both seem to be facing imminent playoff elimination.
The Gulls scored four key points in last weekend’s home ice sweep of Bakersfield (7-4 on Friday) and Calgary (5-4 on Sunday) to remain in the playoff chase.
The Pacific Division has been extremely competitive this season with the top three teams separated by five points, the top four teams separated by 10 points and the next four team separated by just five points.
Coachella Valley and Henderson are both 8-2 in their last 10 games in a serious bid to improve their playoff standing while San Jose is 7-3.
The Gulls are 5-5 in their last 10 games while Tucson is 6-3-1. Points this weekend in Canada seem to be a must, as they are in every game to end regular season play.
Gulls 7, Condors 4
The Gulls scored four goals in the first period in a timely display of offense and went four-for-four on the penalty kill against a team ahead of them in the division standings.
Notables from Friday’s stiff encounter:
Tristan Luneau collected his ninth goal and 24th assist of the season, giving him points in nine of his last 10 games (five goals, 10 assists, 15 points), including six multiple points in that span. He leads San Diego defensemen with 33 points.
Matthew Phillips scored his 12th goal of the campaign, his fifth on the power play, and earned his 31st assist, which leads Gulls skaters. He ranks second on the team with 43 points and tied for second in power play goals.
Nikita Nesterenko scored his fifth goal and collected his sixth assist for his second multi-point game in his last four games (two goals, two assists).
Cal Burke scored his second goal and recorded his ninth assist of the season to give him three points (one goal, two assists) in his last three games.
Stian Solberg scored his 10th goal of the season to move him into a tie for most goals by a rookie AHL defenseman. His 10 goals also rank tied for sixth among all AHL defensemen.
Judd Caulfield scored his 16th goal of the season, giving him 35 points (16 goals, 19 assists) to rank fourth among Gulls skaters.
Nathan Gaucher collected two assists for his third multi-assist effort of the season. He now has 14 assists on the season — one shy of his AHL career high set in 2023-24.
Sam Colangelo earned two assists to match his assist total from last season (18). He has posted six points (one goal, five assists) in his last four games.
Sasha Pastujov pushed his point streak to three games with his 30th assist of the season. He continues to lead Gulls skaters with 46 points (16 goals, 30 assists).
Tyson Hinds and Yegor Sidorov both picked up an assist apiece while goaltender Tomas Suchanek posted his third consecutive victory and his fifth overall by stopping 15 shots.
Gaucher said it “feels good to be at home” after two games in Colorado to conclude a four-game series against the Eagles. “It feels good to have our fans,” Gaucher said. “I think we’re comfortable playing at home as well. But we needed that start, and we got it. It’s good for us.”
“I think just putting pucks in the net, having traffic over there. …We did a good job, we shot a lot, too, and four goals, we got fortunate bounces, too,” Hinds said. “So, it was a pretty good to come out the gate. It was a big thing for us coming out to get hot and keep the lead too after that. So, it was nice.”
Hinds said the team’s goaltending tandem is anchoring a solid effort. “It’s fun to have a goalie that battles hard every time, (who) never gives up,” Hinds said. “That’s a big thing for us, and big thing for him, too. So, it’s good. We have confidence in them, and both of our goalies are playing really good these days so it’s really good. Like I said, he battles hard and never gives up.”
Gulls head coach Matt McIlvane said he was glad to see his team build off the effort of the 2-2 series split with Colorado.
“We had enough chances in the last game (a 5-1 loss) and we had breakaways, two-on-ones, three-on-twos, quick strike chances, and a lot of similar chances to what we had tonight (against the Condors),” the San Diego bench boss said. “It’s good to watch the puck go in the net.
“What we were hoping would happen is we played a good series against Colorado, and what we were hoping was that we’d watch our team carry some confidence from that. I think we saw some of that tonight. Anytime that you have this many guys getting rewarded, I think that seeds a little bit more confidence that we can carry.”
Gulls 5, Wranglers 4
The Gulls took a 1-0 lead at 9:57 in Sunday’s game on an even-strength goal by Gaucher, assisted by Hinds and Luneau. It was Gaucher’s 10th goal of the season and 26th point. The assist was Luneau’s 25th of the season, the 13th for Hinds.
Luneau is quietly, maybe not so quietly actually, having a great season.
The hosts doubled their lead to 2-0 at 10:58 as team captain Ryan Carpenter scored his 16th goal of the season, 38th point of the season. Assists went to Pastujov (31st) and Justin Bailey (16th).
Carpenter is also racking up points.
San Diego’s Colangelo was assessed a five-minor major and game misconduct at 12:09 of the first period for cross-checking (for which he later received a two-game suspension from the league). It did not prove to be a game-changer, however, as the Gulls, in fact, nearly scored twice while shorthanded.
The Gulls received a late penalty for too many men on the ice, but the Wranglers were unable to score for the 43 seconds left in the period.
Shots were 11-7 in favor of the Gulls to end the opening 20 minutes of play
There were five goals in the second period to leave the Gulls with a 4-3 lead through 40 minutes.
Gaucher scored at 2:04, with assists from Pastujov and Luneau for a 3-0 lead. Cal Burke made it 4-0 at 10:36 on the power play. Stian Solberg and Roland McKeown picked up the assists.
The Wranglers responded with three unanswered goals: Carter King at 14:41 (his fifth from Dryden Hunt, his 35th assist), Clark Bishop at 15:10 (his 10th) and Hunt at 16:04 (his 16th and 51st point).
The hosts broke the Calgary comeback with the only goal in the third period: an empty net goal by Gaucher to complete his hat trick in the game’s waning minutes.
The Wranglers left their net empty and the visitors scored with less than one second to play with the extra-attacker to make the final score 5-4.
The puck-drop on the ensuing face-off marked the end of the game.
It was the 13th hat trick in Gulls AHL history, and the first three-goal game for Gaucher.
San Diego finished with a final 30-23 edge in shots. Gaucher skated off the ice with first star of the game honors while Burke was the second star and Pastujov (with two assists) was the third star in a Gulls’ sweep of post-game honors.
Goaltender Calle Clang, who is also having a good season, made 19 saves to notched his 15th win in 2025-26.
Gaucher would later receive a call-up to Anaheim.
“Our line has been playing really well,” Gaucher said in regard to his first career hat trick. “There are games where we get rewarded offensively and tonight’s one of those. We put the hard work in every day, and one of those games will go in for us. So, it’s good one of those days was today.”
Gaucher said the team cannot be looking too far ahead “Just focusing on our game, whoever we play, wherever we play,” he said.” We just want to play the same way. Consistency is the big thing for us. We’ve got to play 60 minutes if we want to win a hockey game so that’s a big focus for us down the stretch.”
“Loved our first period,” McIlvane said. “It was fun to watch the puck move around like that and see it go in. Until 5:30 left in the in the second, I loved our second. There was a turning point where it felt like they might have caught a little bit of momentum and then we got off track for maybe two minutes. Then we collected ourselves between periods and came out with a really poised third period and I don’t think we gave them too much. So, upset that we got off track for a moment, but the important part is we got back on and got the two points.
The San Diego coach gives Gaucher high marks for his progress this season. “Nate has been gaining confidence in himself and in his role throughout this season,” McIlvane said. “It’s been a slow build, but it felt like today might be an exclamation point as far as how he’s developed this year. That line has been tremendous. It’s Nathan, Judd (Caulfield) and whomever they’re playing with is usually having a great night. It’s great for Nathan to get that reward.”
McIlvane said his team cannot afford to take any opponent too lightly regardless of where they are in the standings.
“I think the big thing in the third period is we just got back on track mentally,” the Gulls coach said. “We lost focus for a moment and then you get to see how good Calgary is. We give them those team plays and back post stuff, and they can capitalize. But if we play the way we know how, we’ll be just fine.
“I think there’s plenty from this game to keep and build on. I liked a lot of our offensive zone play. I thought we hunted pucks well and we played most of the game above them. We’re continuing to build our game to put an exclamation point on the season. We know we’ve got a worthy opponent, but we’ll use this week to practice and prepare.”
Youngsters from the Kroc Center Ice Arena lined the high-five tunnel and later joined Gulls players on the ice for pregame ceremonies for Sunday’s Youth Night. Attendance was noted as 9,000-plus in the official AHL game report.
Friday’s game theme was Pride Night. It was a fun evening filled with music, an on-ice Pride parade during the first intermission and specialty merchandise to denote the occasion.
“We’ve been trying to put a fresh look on all our theme nights this season, not just rolling out the same stuff every year,” Gulls President of Business Operations Matt Savant said.
