Home sweet home had to have a welcome ring to it for the San Diego State University men’s ice hockey team after six games on the road to face off their inaugural season in the Western Collegiate Hockey League.
The Aztecs failed to pick up a win in the six away games while seeing their overall record dip to 2-6 on the season following a 0-6 start to conference play.
Mixed in were some competitive games (5-2 loss to the University of Arizona) and not-so-competitive games (15-0 loss to the University of Utah and 11-0 to Grand Canyon University).
The Aztecs faced a Western Michigan team facing its own share of adversity with a 0-8 start. Now make that 0-10 after SDSU claimed 6-4 and 4-3 victories against the Kalamazoo visitors.
Second-year Aztec Kolby Hennessy turned in a big weekend for the Aztecs with one goal and one assist in the Friday game and two goals in the Saturday rematch.
Hennessy notched a shorthanded goal in Friday’s series opener to stake the hosts to an early 2-0 lead. His second goal of the game on Saturday, on a power play 25 seconds into the third period, tied the game 3-3 as SDSU (4-6) battled back from deficits of 2-1 and 3-2.
Team scoring leader Cameron Ferraz had a productive two games with one goal and three assists while Luke Desmarais duplicated that four-point effort.
Connor Hennigan dished out three assists while Patrick Fast had two goals, including the game-winner on Saturday at 11:31 of the third period. Drew Gunderson had a goal and assist, Patrick Morris, Zach Stroozas and Lucas Bellig each collected two assists, Brandon Grant and Max Kathol each had one goal and Sean Devaney added one assist.
Twelve players recorded points.
Liam Dee made 42 saves on 46 shots to register the goaltending victory in the first game and stopped 36 of 39 shots to notch the win in the rematch.
Grand Canyon (No. 12), Utah (No. 15) and Arizona (No. 17) are all nationally ranked. The Aztecs have the honor, for this year, at least, of being the new kid on the block.
“We played some tough teams on the road, top team,” SDSU coach Dean Wilson said. “It’s really good hockey we played. We’re happy our guys showed up. It’s our home barn. We had a little adversity. We had a lot of injuries. We had different guys out of the lineup. It’s difficult to get any chemistry with the lines different every night.”
The Aztecs built a 5-0 lead in the series opener to snap the losing streak.
“It’s huge for us coming out of that little slump,” Hennessy said. “We’re still a young team with a lot of room to grow.”
“It was good,” said Devaney, an Otay Ranch High School alumnus. “The WCHL, all the teams over here, are top 25. Every game’s a battle. With Western Michigan, we thought we could take advantage of them flying all those miles here and get on top of them. Get the puck in, hammer them. It’s tough with guys going down every week with injuries. But we all try to play our parts and keep going on all cylinders.”
Scott Hopkins contributed to this story.
Protect the nest
GULLS ROAR BACK IN HOME OPENER AGAINST FIREBIRDS BUT FIRST WIN OF SEASON RESERVED IN BAKERSFIELD
Both the host San Diego Gulls and Coachella Valley Firebirds entered Friday’s AHL home opener at Pechanga Arena San Diego with 0-2 records. Obviously, something had to give between the teams in securing the first of what players on both teams hope will be many wins throughout the season.
The Firebirds got that early edge in eight meetings on the season between the Southern California teams with a 6-5 victory in front of 9,267 fans.
Coachella Valley improved to 1-2 while San Diego opened the season 0-3.
The final score doesn’t tell the whole story as the Gulls were down 6-1 through two periods.
“When you have a game like this, the home opener, and there’s a big stage set, there’s so much hype around the game,” San Diego head coach Matt McIlvane said. “Sometimes, when you get over-hyped, it comes out as a flat effort and there wasn’t enough movement. For me, that was the start of our game. We were slow with the puck, and we were slow to react in a lot of situations. I thought that carried into the second period, where we get behind. I understand that they were up 6-1 and maybe the game plan changes a little bit for them, but all of sudden we got something that we can latch onto and have success. That’s what we did in the third period. It’s too little, too late and not enough early.”
The Gulls drew the first power play of game at 1:01 of the opening period when former Gull Nikolas Brouillard was charged with a hooking penalty. The hosts generated a couple scoring opportunities but no goal.
It was an up and down game early on. At the 10-minute mark, shots favored Coacehlla Valley 8-6. The shot count included the first goal of the game scored at 9:16 by the Firebirds’ Jacob Melanson, assisted by Ty Nelson and Eduard Sale.
The visitors doubled their lead at 11:41 as Sale pushed the puck past Gulls starter Oskar Dansk, who was laying on his back after rejecting a shot. Lleyton Roed and Ryan Winterton recorded the assists.
The Firebirds weren’t done as they upped the score to 3-0 at 13:46 on a goal by Ben Meyers, assisted by Max McCormick and Brouillard.
Coachella Valley then went on the power play at 14:46. The San Diego defense finally had a response for that.
The Gulls finally cracked the Firebirds offense at 18:18 as newcomer Roland McKeown scored off passes from newly named team captain Ryan Carpenter and returner Pavol Regenda. The goal was McKeown’s first in a San Diego uniform.
The game’s first scrum happened 37 seconds later behind the San Diego net to get the home fans roaring with approval.
The Gulls continued their new-found momentum by going on another power play with 1:05 left in the first period. Shots at the end of one period favored the visitors over the hosts 15-10 with the power play lapsing over to the second period.
3-1 Coachella Valley.
The second period ended with a 6-1 Firebirds lead. Cale Fleury scored a natural hat trick in the period to double the visitors’ lead.
Fleury made it 4-1 at 2:26, assisted by Jagger Firkus and McCormick.
Fleury made it 5-1 at 8:10 on a power play, assisted Brandon Biro and Meyers.
Fleury made it 6-1 at 15:05, assisted by John Hayden and Gustav Olofsson.
Two of the Coachella goals came from long distance. Fleury’s second goal prompted the removal of Dansk with Calle Clang taking over duty in the San Diego net.
Fans were treated to a couple more scrums and fighting majors by Melanson and McCormick from the Firebirds and Dillon Heatherington and Nathan Gaucher from the Gulls.
Heatherington’s bout was of the heavyweight nature and went on for some time to a resounding chorus of cheers.
Shots through 40 minutes were 25-16 in favor of the Firebirds. The hosts were limited to six shots in the second period.
While the game opened with indoor fireworks from the rafters, it ended with fireworks on the ice, most notably by the hosts.
The Gulls scored the opening goal of the third period to creep to within 6-2 on the scoreboard. Sam Colangelo got the goal at 5:01, assisted by Nikita Nesterenko and Josh Lopina. The goal was Colangelo’s first of the season.
The hosts dominated the opening 10 minutes of the period with a 7-3 edge in shots, but only one goal was the result of that sustained pressure.
That would quickly change.
The hosts finished the final period with a 19-3 bulge in shots and three goals to finish just one goal down on the scoreboard.
Carpenter got his first goal as a Gull at 12:54, assisted by Regenda and Carson Meyer, to draw the hosts to within 6-3.
The Gulls pulled Clang with 3:35 to play in favor of an extra attacker in a bid to draw closer on the scoreboard.
It became a super-power play when CV’s McCormick was whistled for a high-sticking infraction with 2:27 to play. It took the hosts 36 seconds to score, as Regenda made it 6-4 with the power play goal at 18:08. Assists went to McKeown and Meyer.
Colangelo rustled up his second goal of the game at 18:49 to close the gap to 6-5. Bedlam was suddenly in the house as Gulls faithful had to wonder if it was really time to believe. Assists went to Yegor Sidorov and Nesterenko.
Clang remained out of the net and a pair of down ice shots by the visitors sailed wide. The puck eventually made its way back into the Coachella Valley defensive zone but shots by the hosts went wide.
The Gulls won the period 4-0 but not the game.
Dansk was credited with 15 saves on 20 shots in 28:10 while Clang stopped seven of the eight shots he faced in 29:00.
San Diego finished the game with a 35-28 edge in shots.
“We know we have character, we know we have fight, but we have to start on time with our concentrated effort to be great for 60 minutes,” McIlvane said. “That wasn’t there tonight. That’s going to have to change.
“We got out of our zone so fast, it gave us opportunities to go and hunt and play with the puck as units of five. We gave ourselves a chance to keep fighting at the end. It’s too little, too late.”
“That’s an encouraging third period,” McKeown said. “For me, it’s a little score adjusted. We got to do it earlier, but nonetheless, it’s good to see fight back and push and obviously give the fans something to cheer about. It was a full building and loud fans, so I’m glad we gave them a bit of a show at the end.
“I just thought we upped our intensity. Maybe a little quiet on the bench at times, and then we kind of found our push and our mojo. So, I thought we got to continue that as we head to Bakersfield (for Saturday’s back end of a two-nighter).”
Fleury grabbed first star of the game honors with three goals while Colangelo (two goals) was the second star and MaKeown (one goal, one assist) was the third star.
The Firebirds return only a small number of players that helped the team reach back-to-back Calder Cup Finals, either now with the NHL parent Seattle Kraken, traded to other teams or the object of free agency.
Down to what some consider an “average” AHL line-up, the Firebirds may still be able to do some damage in the standings this season.
With a pair of one-goal losses in their opening three games, the Gulls look to be competitive as well this season.
Condors droppings
The Gulls recorded their first win of the season, 3-2, in overtime on Saturday in Bakersfield. OT victory over the Bakersfield Condors on Saturday night. San Diego forward Yegor Sidorov scored the first two goals in his AHL career, including the OT winner. He is the first Gulls rookie to score an overtime goal since Jamie Drysdale on Feb. 14, 2021, against Colorado and the ninth overall. Sidorov has tallied four points (two goals, two assists) in his last two games.
Carson Meyer scored his second goal of the season, his first on the power play. He now has three points (one goal, two assisrts) in his last two games.
Pavol Regenda earned an assist for his fourth point in the last two games (one goal, three assists). He leads San Diego skaters in scoring this season with five points (one goal, four assists).
Ryan Carpenter picked up an assist, giving him points in back-to-back games (one goal, two assists).
Josh Lopina collected an assist for the second consecutive game while Judd Caulfield and Nathan Gaucher each collected their first points and assists of the season.
Calle Clang stopped 25-of-27 shots to earn his first victory of the season.
Head coach Matt McIlvane said that there was “a lot of good to be seen in the game” as the Gulls look to carry the momentum over to their upcoming four-game Canadian road trip against the Abbotsford Canucks and Calgary Wranglers.
“(The effort was) highlighted by a bunch of big efforts, like guys sprinting back to help each other, guys blocking shots,” the San Diego bench boss said. “Again we find ourselves down, but we know we’ve got the resolve to be able to come back and just to be able to use that and then finish the job. That was really big moment for our group to be able to capture that feeling and especially put an exclamation point on a really strong effort.”
Sidorov was obviously excited about the outcome.
“It feels awesome, especially when you score in a game when we win,” he said. “It’s awesome. First professional win, too, so I’m really excited. Let’s just keep rolling and keep going. We will try to do our best and win every single game.
“We played fast. The coaches were saying we played fast and smart. We had good discipline. We played really well. I think we started playing last night in the third period when we almost came back. We moved to this game just positive and we win.”
