The Reign’s Season Comes To End After Bizarre Goalie Situation
- Updated: May 3, 2017
It wasn’t supposed to end this way. And the game wasn’t supposed to start this way either.
In a strange turn of events Tuesday night, the Ontario Reign started third-string goalie Jack Flinn in game five of this best-of-five series against the San Diego Gulls. After all was said and played, the Gulls scored three first period goals within three minutes, and no great comeback was in order, as the Reign lost 4-1, ending its season and a Calder Cup bid.
Where to begin? First off, the Reign made it to game five and that was a good thing. That way my wife and I, who live in the San Diego area, could attend the game at the Valley View Casino Center on Tuesday. In the Monday night contest in Ontario, the Reign solved the riddle of Jhonas Enroth to the tune of four goals, including an empty netter, as the Reign won 4-1. Justin Auger scored two goals and an assist, T.J. Hensick netted one goal and two assists, and goalie Jack Campbell stopped 21 of 22 shots in the victory.
Through the Reign Insider, coach Mike Stothers said of the back-to-back games, “This five games have been stretched out long enough. I don’t know if there’s any advantage to the back-to-back or the layoff. If they’ve got some inured guys, we’ve got some injured guys, maybe a couple of days helps, but I’m kind of anxious now – let’s get going.”
All this made way for a great matchup in what was supposed to be an intense and lively fifth game.
Campbell possibly wondering “How did I get here?”
For Reign fans, it was a dud.
For the fans of the Los Angeles Kings (the NHL affiliate of the Reign), it would be like watching a condensed version of their ill-fated season: back up goalie, getting down early, trying to play catch-up and not scoring enough goals. That made for quite a disappointing and frustrating season for the Kings; it didn’t look that much different or better in the microcosm of the one lame season-ending game for the Reign.
Starter Campbell reportedly injured himself in the first period of the previous night’s game. So the plan was to have backup goalie Jeff Zatkoff in the game, however he gets injured during warmups. So that leaves third string Flinn, and the water boy. Flinn gets the call.
Said Flinn, “There wasn’t a whole lot of time to think about it so I just focused on trying to stop pucks.”
But it didn’t take long before Flinn gets the hook. Though feisty and physical at the start, the Reign couldn’t stop the Gulls once that team got going. Three goals in the span of 2:37 seconds deflated Ontario and sent the relatively small crowd in San Diego into a frenzy. They could smell the blood.
Through an earbud communication from the bench to the training room, someone gave the word to Campbell to suit up. Trooper that he is, he went in and stopped 14 of 15 shots, though by then the Gulls were pretty much playing defensive hockey. (We won’t mention Campbell’s out-of-the-net stick-handling that ended in a fanned pass and an opponent’s shot that hit the goal post.)
A third period goal by Brett Sutter at 8:12 made it interesting as the team did its best on mounting a comeback, though thwarted by an excellent showing by Enroth, former LA Kings goalie (37 saves on 38 shots). At 14:20 a pretty passing play by the Gulls had Campbell’s net open for Jordan Samuels-Thomas to put it home and put the game out of reach.
Said Stothers about the goalie situation, “It was, a tough thing to deal with at the start. It happened in a short amount of time, and there wasn’t a whole lot of time to get anybody’s head wrapped around it. So, it’s unfortunate.”
Of the loss to his number one goalie, Stothers said, “I’m going to beat myself up probably on that one just as much the same I did last year when we played Lake Erie and we didn’t have a healthy Sutter, we didn’t have a healthy Brodz, we didn’t have LaDue. You can do that and it just sounds like you’re making excuses. We’ve got to give a lot of credit to San Diego. I think they had the best record from Christmas on in the whole American Hockey League. I don’t want to say anything because I truly think San Diego is very deserving. Good team, they did a good job.”
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