The San Diego Gulls came up short in Saturday’s American Hockey League home season opener at Pechanga Arena, 4-3, to the visiting Henderson Silver Knights. But the 10,023 fans in attendance were treated to an exciting contest that will likely keep them coming back.
The Gulls, who are bidding for a return to the Calder Cup playoffs after a three-year absence, won their season opener, 5-0, at Coachella Valley on Oct. 10. It was a positive start.
But the schedule-maker wasn’t necessarily kind as the Gulls had a week off before hosting the Silver Knights, who came into the arena with three games already under their skates.
The sluggishness showed as the Nevada team took a 2-0 lead after the opening period to force the home team to expend valuable energy in a bid to play catch up.
But catch up the Gulls did, erasing the two-goal deficit on second-period goals by Tristan Luneau and Judd Caulfield to tie the Pacific Division matchup 2-2 midway through the second period. Luneau scored the Gulls’ first power play goal of the season at 2:45, assisted by Matthew Phillips and Sasha Pastujov. Caulfield tied the game at 9:42, assisted by newcomer Tim Washe and Yegor Sidorov.
The Silver Knights, the top developmental affiliate of the NHL Vegas Golden Knights, went back in front, 3-2, on a power play goal by Braeden Bowman at 14:06. The Gulls rallied again to knot the score, 3-3, on an electrifying goal by captain Ryan Carpenter with just 39 seconds left in the middle period.
Fans were buzzing and waiting for more in the third period.
But it seemed playing catch-up took its toll. Despite three power play opportunities in the period, including a two-man advantage in the final 1:09, the hosts were unable to complete a comeback against the Henderson goaltender.
The Gulls finished with a 10-7 edge in shots in the final period, 31-22 for the game, but finished one-for-six on the power play. Near-misses were on display rather than crowd-pleasing goals down the stretch.
Dylan Coughlan of the Silver Knights earned first star of the game with a goal and assist while Caullfield (second star) and Luneau (third star) also made the post-game three-star award list.
Tanner Laczynski scored the first goal for Henderson while Jonas Rondbjerg doubled the score.
“This was their fourth game of the year now, so they’re kind of more into the swing of things,” said San Diego netminder Ville Husso, who was credited with 18 saves. “I think our effort was good, but we can just execute a little bit better. Overall, I think there’s a lot of good things, but not our best.”
“Bottom line, you get down out of the gate 2-0, and you’re behind the eight ball, and good on us for being able to battle back in the second, not once, but twice, and then enter the third all square with an opportunity to win the game,” Gulls head coach Matt McIlvane said.
“And in the end, we’re a play short of being able to capitalize on that. I think when we go back and we look at it, we’re just going to feel like there’s a lot of opportunity for cleanup, and part of it could be a result of not playing for a little bit, but that part’s just an excuse. We can be better than that.”
Husso said the atmosphere of the home opener was “great.”
“There was a ton of energy the entire night,” he said. “Super fun atmosphere to play in and tons of fans … There’s a lot of juice in the building, and we definitely feel it behind us as we’re trying to make that comeback. Looking forward to keeping that going.”
“Fans were great,” McIlvane said. “The energy was good. The (new LED dasher) boards were cool. It’s a great hockey experience. On our side, we wish we were a little cleaner in some areas, and that’s what we’ll be working towards.”
The Gulls had less time to turn around for Wednesday’s home game against the defending division champion Colorado Eagles. After Wednesday’s game, the Gulls were off to Henderson for a weekend series Friday and Saturday before returning to host San Jose on Oct. 29.
Where Eagles dare — Gulls come up short 2-0 in defensive battle
The Gulls entered Wednesday’s home ice contest against the visiting Colorado Eagles eighth in the 10-team Pacific Division standings six points behind the front-running Eagles. It’s early in the season and teams have played an uneven number of games, but the Eagles (3-1) have resumed their customary perch as defending division champions while the Gulls (1-1) were located near the bottom.
The San Diegans have designs on reversing their ninth-place division finish last season as the 2025-26 season dawns.
The Eagles would be a good test to that end.
Henderson, Ontario and Tucson were all 2-1-1 out of the gate while Bakersfield was 2-1 and defending Sammy Calder Cup champion Abbotsford was 2-2. Calgary was 1-2-1 in seventh place, one point ahead of the Gulls. San Jose was 1-1 while Coachella Valley was 0-2-1 in last place.
Again, it’s early in the season.
Among Pacific Division teams, Bakersfield’s Rem Pitlik and Calgary’s Dryden Hunt were in the scoring lead with six points on two goals and four assists while Colorado’s Danil Gushchin (five goals), Tucson’s Sammy Walker (two goals, three assists), Calgary’s Rory Kerins (two goals, three assists) and Jack Ahcan (one goal, four assists) and Tucson’s Ben McCartney (one goal, four assists) were next up with five points each.
Sasha Pastujov and Matthew Phillips paced the Gulls in scoring with three points (one goal, two assists each) through two games. Ryan Carpenter and Judd Caulfield paced the team with two goals each. Tim Washe logged in with a goal and assist while three players each had two assists: Roland McKeown, Jan Mysak and Noah Warren.
Goaltender Ville Husso was 1-1 with a 2.04 GAA and 0.917 save percentage with one shutout.
Game on
The Eagles scored the game’s opening goal at 2:09 as Gushchin broke in on Husso on a two-on-one. The shot was uncontested and easily beat the Gulls netminder. T.J. Tynan and Hank Kempf picked up the assists. The goal was Gushchin’s sixth of the season while Tynan recorded his fourth assist.
Colorado piled up the first four shots of the contest before the hosts went on the power play, responding with a pair of shots of their own.
The Gulls got their offense moving and shots were even at eight apiece with 6:37 to play in the first period. But the Eagles also spread their wings as game play got deeper. Husso stopped another two-on-one with 5:30 left in the period.
Tim Washe slipped in at side of net with just over two minutes to play #7285-86, Colorado goaltender Isak Posch had to make a sliding save across the goal line, stacking his pads. The Gulls finished the period with a 13-9 advantage in shots.
The teams exchanged power play opportunities throughout the second period with the Gulls narrowly missing the net during a sequence of unbelievable action in front of the cage. The Eagles did compile an 11-7 edge in shots in the period while generally under duress. The teams were knotted at 20 shots through two periods.
The Gulls pulled Husso with 1:42 to play and the Eagles finally put the game to bed with an empty net goal with 51 seconds to play for a 2-0 lead. Tristen Nielsen scored the empty-netter with helpers from Gushchin and Tynan.
Final shots were 28-27 in favor of Colorado, 8-6 in the third period for the visitors.
Posh was the first star with 27 saves while Guschchin (one goal, one assist) was the second star and Tynan (two assists) was the third star.
Husso stopped 26 of 28 shots in the setback.
Colorado improves its division best record to 4-1 while San Diego saw its record dip to 1-2.
That the Gulls were able to stay with the first place Eagles was encouraging as San Diego held Colorado scoreless on five power play opportunities, including 24 seconds with a 5-on-3 advantage.
“Colorado is a great team,” San Diego head coach Matt Mclvane said. “They’ve got a deep lineup, and they work and track pucks. It’s as speedy as any team in our division and there’s a lot of skill over there as well. Coaching wise, we played with a lot of heart today, and I think that with a little bit of perspective we’ll realize where we’re at. There’s a lot of ingredients in that game that will give us sustainable success. I’m not sure that we played smart enough to win the hockey game, you give them too many odd men rushes and eventually something is going to happen. Ville (Husso) was rock solid in the net today; he gave us a chance in the end. Not being able to find a way to get one by their goalie was the difference in the game in the end, but a lot of good from our effort and competitive standpoint. We could certainly play smarter to get the win.
“I liked it better when we weren’t trapped in our own zone (on the penalty kill). We had a couple long ones but when we did, it felt like we were bending but not breaking. Again, Ville was tremendous in those scenes to be able to give us an opportunity to go 5-for-5. The kill has shown a lot of character that’s for sure.”
The next two games are this weekend in Henderson, which is off to a 2-1-1 start.
“Whether we play at home or on the road, we’re ready to play our next game,” McIlvane said. “There’s plenty that we can build on from this, and we’ll learn. Perspective will go a long way for us right now. It feels like we’ve been at it for a while, but that’s game three of 72 and we can build from here.”
“I think it was a good game for us and for them,” Gulls defenseman Kicolar Brouillard said. “It was good to watch. They have a really good team. We know that. I think we were on top of them, just one simple mistake in that first period and the puck was in the back of our net. We know they have a good offense so that can happen, but I think we played hard. There’s some real positives to take away from this game, and I’m sure we’ll find our balance at some point in the season.
“Ville was unbelievable. He kept us in the game all game long, and he made a lot of really nice saves. That game could have been maybe three, nothing, four nothing, or maybe even 3-2 or 4-2 since that other goalie played well too. He’s a huge part of our team, and we appreciate him.”
