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AHL San Diego Gulls

Carrick Leads Gulls' Scoring Barrage at Stockton

November 25, 2018 - American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


Sam Carrick scored his first career hat trick, a natural hat trick, and factored in five of San Diego's six goals to help the Gulls to a 6-3 win over the Stockton Heat at Stockton Arena. The Gulls scored three first-period goals for the fourth time this season, and San Diego scored three-or-more goals for the seventh straight game. The Gulls have scored 57 goals through the team's first 15 games of the season (excluding shootout goals), five more than the 52 goals scored through 15 games in 2016-17.

San Diego has also scored a power-play goal tonight to mark the 13 of 15 game the Gulls have scored a goal on the man advantage (17-for-67, 25.4 percent). The Gulls lead the AHL with a road power play of 31.6 percent and have scored a goal in each of the five road contests (6-for-19).

Carrick netted the fourth hat trick and third natural hat trick in Gulls history, with his three consecutive goals by spanning 18:05 across the first and second periods (11:09 and 13:29 of the first period, and 8:14 of the second period). The hat trick set a new career high in goals for Carrick, surpassing the eight previous two-goal games (last: Oct. 6 at Tucson).

Carrick also earned two assists, setting a new single-game career high in points (3-2=5) and a Gulls single-game record for points in a game, surpassing the previous club record of four set on five prior occasions (last: Kalle Kossila, 0-4=4 on Jan. 3, 2018 at Texas). He also recorded a career high +4 rating. Carrick now leads San Diego in goals (9) and ranks tied for second on the Gulls in scoring (9-7=16).

Simon Benoit scored his first career goal 1:35 into the contest, his sixth point of the season (1-5=6). Carrick earned the primary assist and Giovanni Fiore tallied his ninth point with the secondary assist. Fiore has scored 2-3=5 points his last five games.

Sam Steel scored an empty-net goal with 39 seconds left in regulation to seal the win and extend his point streak to five games (4-3=7). Steel has tallied eight points in eight games this season (4-4=8). Carrick earned the lone assist, his fifth point of the game.

Joseph Blandisi also scored an empty-net goal at 19:58 of the third period, his first goal of the season to push his scoring streak to five games (1-4=5). Luke Schenn earned the lone assist, his second in as many games.

Isac Lundestrom tallied his fourth assist in as many games on the first Carrick goal (0-4=4) and Josh Mahura earned the secondary assist on the goal. Mahura leads San Diego defensemen in scoring (1-8=9) and assists.

Chase De Leo collected the primary assist on the second Carrick goal, his second helper in as many games. Steve Oleksy also recorded an assist on the goal, his second of the season.

Kevin Boyle earned his fifth win of the season after stopping 41-of-44 shots, marking the third time this season Boyle has made 40-or-more saves.

Troy Terry was held scoreless for the first game of his AHL career. Terry set a club record 11-game point streak from Oct. 19-Nov. 23 (7-9=16), the longest point streak in the AHL this season.

The Gulls will return to San Diego to begin a brief, two-game homestand vs. the Manitoba Moose on Wednesday, Nov. 28 (7 p.m.) and Friday, Nov. 30 (7 p.m.).

POSTGAME QUOTES

San Diego Gulls

Sam Carrick

On his five-point night

It definitely feels good, especially coming after the loss that we had the other night. It just feels good to get the win and be able to hold on to the lead like we did tonight. They came with a good push in the third period and there's still things that we can improve on playing with a lead. At the end of the day, we got the win and that's what matters.

On closing out the game

We just won more battles. There was more pucks along the wall that guys use that extra effort to make sure that the puck got out. We made smarter plays in the neutral zone. If the play is not there then just get it deep and go to work. As a group, we did a better job tonight playing our style of hockey.

On the late Stockton goal

That was tough. It was one of those where I have to win that faceoff or at least tie it. I take responsibility for that, but at the end of the day, that's going to happen and you have to move on. You can't dwell on it too much. For the most part, I thought we did a pretty good job of that.

Head Coach Dallas Eakins

On the game

We were in a fight. We've had some problems holding leads, and the great thing happened tonight, that if anyone was wondering if we were going to be able to do it late, we were able to prove that we could. That's a big check mark to our guys that went in there and battled. I thought our power play was good, we were able to ding them on a 5-on-3 goal that we've worked hard at. Overall, I thought the group was engaged, not only offensively, but from an emotional standpoint.

On the power play

They're great at getting together. I like when players have some ownership in it and today was a great example. Before the game, rather than go through video, I told the two units, 'You guys get together on your own. We just played these guys, we know what we have to do. You guys have your own little meeting.' On the 5-on-3 it's something we've worked on in the past but they certainly bought in to our vision of the power play and our values on it. When you have players do that and then complement that with their skill set, good things are going to happen.

On scoring three-plus goals again

It means a lot. It's something we talked about this morning. I'm a big believer that if you can score three goals every night you're going to win on most occasions. The thing that we've got to clean up have been some penalties that we've taken, some defensive play and a lot of that is just being smart and committing to play without the puck, We're a team here. We're going to score three, four, five goals a night and if we can just really dial in individually with our commitment to defense, we're going to have a lot of good nights.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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