Coming off a brutal end to the first half of the season, the Ontario Reign looked to bounce back as they squared off against the Henderson Silver Knights on Friday night.
Erik Portillo was in the net for the Reign, as was Isaiah Saville for Henderson.
The first period was fantastic for Ontario. Although it was no score through one, the Reign led 11 to 6 in the shots on goal department and had the better of chances while doing so.
In the middle frame, Hayden Hodgson was called for tripping after he wristed one past Saville. A weird sequence of events, as the referee's hand went up, but no whistle was blown when Hodgson secured and ripped the puck from the left circle.
On this man advantage, Henderson did not miss out, as Ontario left Grigori Denisenko too much space across the crease from Gage Quinney, who made a beautiful pass to give the Silver Knights a 1-0 lead.
Less than five minutes later, Madden evened the score, thanks to a mishap on Saville’s end.
Then, off an original shot from Kevin Connauton, Hayden Hodgson tipped the puck out in front and into the net, giving the Reign a 2-1 lead.
With less than a minute left in the 2nd period, Charles Hudon scored a goal with his skate, to give Ontario some insurance going into the final period.
A mistake from Erik Portillo gifted the Silver Knights a goal, followed by Sheldon Rempal extending his goal streak to five games less than 30 seconds later. Just like that, it was a tie game.
The game would go into a shootout, where Jakub Brabenec would score the lone goal of the event, supplying the Silver Knights with a victory.
Here are my three takeaways from the game:
Can’t Put It All Together
The storyline from the bad stretch of games recently has been Ontario starting awful, but then playing well at the end.
Usually, playing well at the end does not matter because it is always too little too late. On Friday, the Reign started really good, but finished really poorly.
This game shifted after Portillo's mistake halfway through the second period. Then right after, the equalizer killed all momentum the Reign had.
Is There A System Issue?
As I reflected on the Reign and Kings seasons during the All-Star break, I realized that both squads have had the same season so far.
Both teams started hot. Not only did they start hot, but they were both really good on the road.
Unfortunately, both teams had really bad endings to the first half of the season. This made me wonder if this is more of a system issue from top to bottom.
This is just some speculation that I had when thinking about both teams' seasons so far, and it certainly is interesting.
Need To Start Winning
It is that time of year when this team needs to win if they want a shot at the playoffs. Slowly but surely, the Reign are trickling down the standings.
As they lie right now, the Reign are sixth in the Pacific division, but only one point ahead of both the Bakersfield Condors and the Henderson Silver Knights.
Yes, the Reign have played better the last two games. But at this point, there needs to be a sense of urgency around the team to start winning.
The Reign will head to Tucson for two against the Roadrunners next weekend, looking for some big bounce-back wins.