In early December the Gulls had all kinds of trouble winning. Now they look like they can’t lose.
After suffering through a five game losing streak San Diego’s pro hockey team has won three in a row after Friday night’s 5-3 victory over the Ontario Reign.
Forward Sam Carrick is having a career year. The 26-year-old has never scored more than 16 goals in a season, which he did with the Toronto Marlies in 2015-16. He might eclipse that before New Year’s Eve. Carrick scored the first and last Gulls goals against Ontario to run his team lead to 14 in just 21 games.
He also might have the most talented line mates of his career to help out. Carrick is spending a good amount of time with youngsters Max Jones (20 years old) and Troy Terry (21 years old). It’s no coincidence that Jones had a goal and two assists while Troy Terry had two assists and leads the team with 16 helpers.
But perhaps the most impressive thing about the win is the Gulls only allowed 18 shots on goal to give goalie Kevin Boyle a relatively easy night.
The one glaring negative is the Gulls power play, the most efficient unit in the Pacific Division, scored just once on 11 chances. That’s right, 11 chances.
The Reign and Gulls don’t like each other very much. There were six fighting penalties handed out in this game alone and Gulls forward Corey Tropp was given a match penalty for slashing. All-in-all we saw 82 penalty minutes in a 60-minute game and they’re not going to get a chance to cool off.
These same teams play at 3:00 Saturday afternoon in Ontario.
