Early Deficit Dooms Reign

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AHL Ontario Reign

Early Deficit Dooms Reign

April 5, 2025 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Ontario Reign News Release


Two first period goals staked the Calgary Wranglers (34-26-4-3) to an early lead which was enough to defeat the Ontario Reign (39-23-3-1) on Saturday afternoon at the Scotiabank Saddledome with the game ending in a 3-1 score.

Glenn Gawdin had the lone strike for the Reign in defeat, extending his career-best goal total to 25 for the season, while Charles Hudon picked up an assist to record his 60th point of the 2024-25 campaign.

The Wranglers opened the scoring and took control of the game in the first, netting a pair of tallies in a span of less than two minutes. Ty Tullio got the home team ahead 1-0 at 3:24 of the first period before Carter Wilkie extended the advantage to 2-0 at 5:15.

Ontario was able to kill off a pair of late minor penalties to Aatu Jamsen and Taylor Ward that resulted in a brief 5-on-3 look for the Wranglers and keep the score 2-0 into the first intermission.

Gawdin cut the Calgary lead in half during the second period, scoring on the power play at 8:44 by deflecting a shot by Caleb Jones past Wranglers' netminder Devin Cooley. Hudon also factored into the goal with the second assist.

Ontario had multiple chances to even the score in the third, including an attempt by Jack Studnicka that went off the crossbar of the Calgary goal. In addition, Gawdin and Samuel Fagemo had open looks in the Wranglers end, but their attempts were stopped by Cooley.

Calgary added insurance at 12:49 of the third off a faceoff win in the offensive zone. Yan Kuznetsov sent a shot past the glove of Pheonix Couple to push the Wranglers lead out to 3-1.

The Reign were unable to get any closer in the final moments as they failed to score on a power play which began at 14:23 when Jonathan Aspirot was called for tripping as well as an opportunity with an extra attacker on the ice in the closing minutes.

Cooley stopped 23 shots to earn the win for Calgary while Copley turned out 20 attempts in a losing effort for Ontario. Gawdin's strike was the lone man-advantage goal in the game, which saw the Reign go 1-for-5 on the power play and hold Calgary to an 0-for-3 mark.

Postgame reactions from Kaleb Lawrence and head coach Marco Sturm are below -

Kaleb Lawrence

On his line's game today

We were playing heavy. I mean, it sucks that we lost. It's hard when you're playing to come back in the game. But I felt like our line did pretty well just throwing hits and making the other guys play.

On learning from the others on his line

Doty plays the game that I want to play a bit, Element too. They're helping me out a lot. The small things always help. Doty is awesome. Every team needs a guy like that. We're really lucky to have him. He took me under his wing. He really helps me out and makes me feel comfortable.

On his fight during the first period

That was a good fight. I mean, I feel like I did pretty well. He's a pretty strong kid as well.

On tomorrow's rematch with Calgary

We just got to stick with it. We have a really good team here and I think all the boys will be ready to go tomorrow.

Marco Sturm

On the result of his team's effort

I think the first seven minutes cost us the game. They were desperate. They played with urgency. They came out hard, like we always know against them. For them, it's a big weekend. We talked about it. We showed it. A lot of guys were just not ready to go and unfortunately it cost us the game.

On losing Joe Hicketts, who exited the game in the second period

All of them have to step up. Again, I think all of them didn't have a really good first seven minutes either. We can't wait for something to happen, and all of a sudden something happened. Then they played pretty solid. I think as a group, I can't pick one guy. They're going to need to be collectively better on the backend. Yeah it sucks losing a guy like Joe, but it also gives another guy, or another two guys a chance to to play.

On the setup for his team during a second period 5-on-3 opportunity

We've done it before. We have two really good right shots with Chromiak and Fagemo as shooters. It was a big five on three. I thought it could have turned the game around. We didn't get anything going, not even more shots. So that really hurt. We were chasing the game and that could have been a great moment to take over the game and we didn't.

The Reign and Wranglers will complete their season series on Sunday with another afternoon matchup inside the Scotiabank Saddledome. Puck drop in Calgary is scheduled for 12 p.m. PT.

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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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