Weekly Reign Wrap-Up: It’s All Good News
- Updated: April 10, 2017
Do you want the good news first, or the good news? OK – good news: the Ontario Reign clinched a playoff birth last week. And the good news? They beat the rival San Diego Gulls twice in doing so. The 35-20-10-0 Reign remain in third in the Pacific with 80 points, five points behind the Gulls and 11 points behind the San Jose Barracuda.
With three games to play in the season, the team next plays the Stockton Heat at 7 p.m., Wednesday, April 12 at the Stockton Arena.
In the Friday game in San Diego, the Reign blanked the Gulls 4-0, on the strength of two power play goals (53 seconds apart), Mike Amadio’s two goals and a shutout by Jack Campbell, who made 30 saves picking up his 30th win. With the Bakersfield Condors’ loss, this win clinched a playoff spot for the Reign, which would play the Gulls in the best-of-five series according to present standings.
The next day, the Gulls were invited out to Ontario to receive its loss, this one 3-1 to complete a weekend sweep by the Reign. Just like Friday, the Reign opened up the scoring in the first period, pushing its record to 26-5-5-0 when scoring first. Tied 1-1 going into the third, the winner came from Zach Leslie at 4:01 of the third, as he fired a shot through a screen. The Gulls and Reign will meet again next Friday and Saturday to end the regular season. In the Saturday match, Campbell made 27 saves on 28 shots.
Through the Reign Insider, coach Mike Stothers said, “I just take it one day at a time. Now we’ve got to get ourselves prepared for Stockton coming up. You don’t really want to be ever pacing yourself because that’s when bad things happen, somebody gets hurt, whatever. I liked our response after a pretty discouraging defeat in San Jose the other night.”
Now that the NHL affiliate Los Angeles Kings is out of the playoffs, the Reign can see the return of its fellow mates Jonny Brodzinski, Adrian Kempe and Paul Ladue as early as Monday’s practice. Said Stothers, “How are they when they come back after being in the NHL, being the big dogs? That’s what I’m curious to see. I hope they remain ratcheted up nice and high and bring everybody up with them.”
Stay with us at Calisportsnews.com as we will keep you up-to-date on all things Ontario Reign and the rest of the LA sports teams! All Cali, all the time!
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