Justin Augur scored 11 minutes, 55 seconds into overtime to give the Ontario Reign a 2-1 victory over the San Diego Gulls Saturday night at the Valley View Casino Center, taking a two games to none lead of the Calder Cup Pacific Division Finals.
Game 3 of the best-of-seven series will be played Sunday in Ontario. The series is alternating venues because of arena availability issues.
The Gulls took their first lead of the series when Nick Ritchie scored 3:22 into the first period off assists by Chris Mueller and Antoine Laganiere.
Ontario, who won the Calder Cup in 2015 as the Manchester Monarchs, tied the score on Kris Newbury’s power-play goal 1:39 into the third period before a crowd announced at 7,621.
The Gulls were outshot 44-27, and were held scoreless on their four power-play opportunities. The Gulls have been outshot in the series, 73-46, and are scoreless in seven power-play opportunities against the American Hockey League’s top penalty killing team during the regular season.
“We liked a lot of parts of our game tonight and we held that one-goal lead for a long time, so that was encouraging,” Gulls coach Dallas Eakins said. “Overall I thought we played a much better game tonight, but the biggest challenge is getting to their net.”
Matt Hackett started in goal for the Gulls, the Anaheim Ducks AHL affiliate, in place of Anton Khudobin for the second consecutive game and made 42 saves. Khudobin has not dressed for the series because of an upper-body injury sustained in the first-round series-clinching 6-2 victory over the Texas Stars April 29.
Peter Budaj made 26 saves for the Reign, the Los Angeles Kings AHL affiliate.
–City News Service
