The San Diego Gulls will try to salvage a split of their two-game series with the Manitoba Moose Saturday in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a day squandering a third-period lead in a 3-2 overtime loss.
Scott Kosmachuk finished a two-on-one rush by backhanding a pass from Chase De Leo over the shoulder of Gulls goaltender Kevin Boyle for the winning goal 91 seconds into overtime. Overtime in the American Hockey League is played with three skaters on each team, just like the NHL. De Leo scored the tying goal with 7:24 left in regulation off assists by Julian Melchiroi and Kosmachuk while the Gulls were attempting to kill a penalty for being caught on a line change for having too many men on the ice.
“This is one of those games we can look back on down the road when we have a lead going into the third period,” said Gulls defenseman Jeff Schultz.
“We can look at this one, see what we did wrong and learn from it.”
In the first game of a four-game road trip, the Gulls (2-2-1-0) opened the scoring 7:08 into the first period when Stefan Noesen’s wrist shot from right wing slid through traffic and underneath Moose goaltender Eric Comrie. Manitoba (3-3-0-1) tied the score 13:14 into the first when Quinton Howden pulled the puck inside the near post for his team-leading fourth goal before a crowd announced at 4,718 at MTS Centre.
The Gulls regained the lead when Corey Tropp tipped in Schultz’s wrist shot for a power-play goal 14:21 into the second period. The Gulls have scored a power-play goal in four of their five games. Boyle stopped 27 of 30 shots in his third game in professional hockey and first with the Gulls.
Boyle was recalled Wednesday from the Utah Grizzlies, the Anaheim Ducks ECHL affiliate, replacing Dustin Tokarski, who was recalled by the Ducks, the Gulls NHL parent team, after Jonathan Bernier suffered an upper-body injury in the first period of Tuesday’s 2-1 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks. Comrie made 27 saves for the Moose, the Winnipeg Jets AHL affiliate. He is a nephew of Fred Comrie, who owned the International Hockey League version of the Gulls in 1995 when he moved them to Los Angeles. The Gulls were one-for-four on the power play and killed three of Manitoba’s four power-play opportunities, including one that began with Tropp was called for tripping with 2:08 left in regulation.
“We played a good game,” Moose coach Pascal Vincent said. “Without the puck, we were good positionally. We were hard on the stick and we were hard on the puck. We were doing the right things and we finally got rewarded offensively.”
The game was the first meeting between the two teams and the Gulls first game in Canada in their season-plus-five-game in the AHL. The Gulls will next play at Valley View Casino Center Nov. 11 against Manitoba.
— City News Service
