AHL San Diego Gulls

Dostal Unflappable, Lowe Scores Late to Send Gulls to 3-0

Published on February 11, 2021 under American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


The San Diego Gulls won their third consecutive game to open the 2020-21 regular season as the team took the lead with five seconds remaining in the game to defeat the Ontario Reign 2-1 tonight at FivePoint Arena. The Gulls three wins to open 2020-21 matches the best start in franchise history (also 3-0-0-0 in 2015-16). With the win, San Diego improved to 34-19-2-2 all-time against Ontario, including a 17-10-2-0 mark on home ice.

Lukas Dostal won his third consecutive game in his third consecutive start for the Gulls, stopping 40-of-41 shots for a .976 save percentage (SV%). Dostal became the youngest netminder in Gulls history to win each of his first three starts with the club (20 years, 7 months, 20 days), passing John Gibson in 2015-16 (22 years, 3 months, 11 days). He currently leads the AHL in saves (109), wins (3) and save percentage (.956, min. 2 GP) and ranks second in goals against average (1.67, min. 2 GP).

Keegan Lowe scored the game-winning goal with five seconds remaining in the game to mark his first goal and point with San Diego. Lowe's goal marks his third game-winning tally of his career and the first since Mar. 25, 2017. Matt Lorito recorded an assist on the goal for his second point of the season (1-1=2).

Josh Mahura scored his first goal of the season at the 9:01 mark of the third period, giving him points in back-to-back contests (1-1=2).

Alex Dostie recorded the primary assists on both San Diego goals (0-2=2) to mark the first multi-assist game and fourth multi-point effort of his AHL career. With three points (0-3=3) through three games, Dostie currently co-leads the team in assists and ranks third in points.

Hunter Drew and Keegan Kanzig made their season debuts tonight.

San Diego will begin the second half of their season-opening six-game homestand with a two-game weekend set against the Colorado Eagles on Friday, Feb. 13 (7 p.m.) and Sunday, Feb. 14 (4 p.m.) at FivePoint Arena in Irvine, Calif.

POSTGAME QUOTES

SAN DIEGO GULLS

Keegan Lowe

On his goal

To be honest, I blacked out a bit. I knew there wasn't much time up on the clock. I took a peek on the way up [the ice]. They want us up in the rush so I followed the play up. The goalie tried to clear the puck so it went past their players. I just went in and tried to put to the side he wasn't on and it worked out.

On the win

It was for sure a weird game. It wasn't our best but it will expose some stuff we can work on and get back to on the drawing board here. There's a lot of stuff we can do better. We had a great game from our goalie there. He definitely kept us in it. Keeping them to one goal on 40-plus shots is pretty incredible work by him. It slowed down a little bit in the third but when the scales are tipping their way in the penalties, eventually they're going to start coming.

On the team's identity

Usually, it takes a few game for a team to establish an identity. Even if it's one thing one year, it's not necessarily going to be the exact same the next. There are a lot of personnel changes like we talked about earlier, young guys coming in and bringing a lot of skill. I've seen this team a lot the last couple years and battled against them a lot, so I knew the identity coming in. That's part of the reason it made it very exciting to come player. I thought it would help my game a lot and I would mesh well here. They've always been a hard-working team. They're hard to play against and hard forechecking, but they also have that skill up front. I think that's only getting better as the years go on with these guys coming in. As long as we continue to play to that identity, even though we have all the skill, continue to play hard and forecheck hard, we can have a good year.

Josh Mahura

On the comeback win

I think the first two periods, I don't know if it was us getting outworked or just the game not going our way, but kind of we felt we were behind the eight ball a little. Going into the third we really wanted to make a push. It was kind of weird third there was a lot of penalties going back and forth, some four-on-three's and five-on-three's but we're excited to come out with the win.

On his goal from getting out of the penalty box

The whole time you're just hoping they don't score and you're not overly thinking about it too much and as the time starts winding down, just think about getting back into the zone and making sure it gets out so I can get off the ice. Bounces like that don't happen every game for you so it's nice to capitalize when they do.

On emotions as Lowe scored

It's obviously pretty exciting, you look at the clock after and there was I think about four seconds or so left. It was a very character win and that's one of our leaders taking a step up for us and putting that in the net.

On playing in front of Dostal

He's definitely been an incredible security blanket, I think we got decently heavily outshot in the games we've played here and that's obviously a focus as us players playing in front of him want to start being aware of. When you got one of the better goalies in the league and he's playing like he is right now, it gives us a lot better of a chance to win every night.

On communication with Dostal

I just think the biggest thing is making sure that you are communicating.

We can't read each other's mind as long as we're making calls to him and he's talking to us and we're talking to him. Plays don't work out as you hope every time but as long as there's that communication to begin is what we're doing and when the familiarity becomes with us D, the forwards and him it will just start meshing together even better.

On the five-on-three penalty kill

It's just guys stepping up and realizing the position we're in. I think a lot of times, in pro hockey especially, games don't go your way the whole time but at the end of the day as long as you can bear down when the times come and like I said when you can come out with a win where we were feeling like we were behind in the first two periods. Just with the guys we have and the guys stepping up, it was a lot of fun to watch and be a part of.

Head Coach Kevin Dineen

On special teams

It would've been nice to get a power-play goal to start on special teams. We'll start on the constructive part, but obviously, the five-on-three and the way the guys went out there and killed, there was some huge blocks, won faceoffs, and our goaltending has been so good. A lot of the time, he's your best penalty killer. Some big moments there when we really needed them and out penalty kill did a fine job tonight

On Lukas Dostal

I've mentioned it before, but he's got some composure in there where he makes things look kind of chill, but when it gets fast and furious, in front of the net, you just see that battle come out. He's got that special intangible that bodes very well for his future.

On the game

We'll take the points and we like the way that we're finding directions to win, but I don't think our game is sustainable right now. The way we're playing, we're leaning too heavily on our goaltender and giving up too many rush chances. There are areas that we really have to clean up and, in all honesty, I think our battle level can be much higher. You don't mind beating up on (the team) after a win, but I think we all deserve it.

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American Hockey League Stories from February 11, 2021


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