The Ontario Reign made easy work of the Bakersfield Condors in game one of round one on Wednesday night.
An early slashing call from Jacob Doty would test Erik Portillo right away in this game, and he would not disappoint.
Portillo was stellar in the first period, keeping the game scoreless at the end of the first, even though the Condors had multiple A plus chances.
It was an evenly contested opening frame. The Reign barely outshot the Condors eleven to ten, and it looked as if the Reign would play yet another nail biter at home.
Everything changed in the middle frame, starting with Andre Lee going top shelf on Jack Campbell giving Ontario the lead.
Brandt Clarke started the play with a beautiful breakout pass along the boards to Taylor Ward, who found Lee in between the circles.
Quickly after the goal, Lane Pederson was called for interference, as things started to quickly unravel for Bakersfield.
Tyler Madden scored on the power play in an identical spot to where Andre Lee scored his goal. And in a blink of an eye, it was 2-0.
Another penalty by Bakersfield, followed by a couple by Ontario, the Reign would find themselves short handed 4 on 3.
But off the draw, Akil Thomas and Joe Hicketts would rush down the ice on a 2 on 1 chance.
Hicketts would blast a one time feed by the glove of Campbell, cashing in on some more insurance.
Then, towards the end of the period and again on the power play, Thomas wanted to get in on the fun, scoring a one timer out in front.
In the regular season, the Reign did not have one four goal period at home. They did it in game one of the playoffs.
Lane Pederson would score a power play goal midway through the last frame, followed up by Tyler Madden scoring his second of the game, putting the game to bed.
Here are my three takeaways from the game:
Portillo Was Great
You need your goalie to be on his game if you want to make a deep run in the playoffs, and Portillo had a great start.
Portillo mentioned how he has had good playoff experience from his time at Michigan University, and that he had felt prepared and comfortable coming into the game.
We all know how important it is to score the first goal in a playoff game, and if it was not for Portillo, the Reign would have definitely fallen behind early.
His trio of great stops on the power play early on, combined with a couple breakaway saves, Bakersfield had a lot of opportunities to get out in front first.
If Portillo continues to play like he did tonight, the Reign are going to make a deep push for the Calder Cup.
Heavyweights Over Speed
Sturm elected to go with a more physical lineup in game one than speed focused, starting guys like Hayden Hodgson and Nikita Pavlychev over Martin Chromiak and Francesco Pinelli.
A very interesting approach, as we did not see those two guys scratched much from the lineup throughout the regular season.
With everyone being healthy for the playoffs, Sturm definitely has some tough decisions to make.
As I mentioned in previous writings, the entire bottom six have played extremely well. This does not exclude guys like Hodgson and Pavlychev. They deserve playoff minutes over anyone.
Chromiak struggled down the home stretch, so him getting scratched was not too surprising to me. What did surprise me was Pinelli.
He not only played really well in the second half of the season, but has spectacular regular season stats against the Condors.
Either way, Sturm’s decision paid off. When asked if it was based off the opponent or depth, he said this, “It’s a combination, I guess. The opponent is one of them. We played them physical all season long and every time we did, they had trouble. There’s a few reasons why but that was definitely one.”
Blowout Win At Home
It is so refreshing to watch the Reign blow a team out in front of their home fans. All year long, no matter the circumstance or the team, every game felt like an instant classic, coming down to the wire.
Seems like there was no comfort in only being up one or two goals, they kept wanting more. Everything went right for the Reign in this game.
I already talked about how good Portillo was, kept the Reign in the game all night, things could have gone south real fast without him.
The Reign drew penalties and got rewarded, going 2-for-7 on the power play tonight, and holding the Condors to just one goal in five power play chances.
In the last three games played, the Condors were 4-for-6 on the power play against the Reign, so holding them to just one in five must have felt good all around for the penalty kill unit.
The Reign will look to close out the series in Bakersfield Saturday night, hoping to move on to the second round for the first time since 2022.