Gulls Down IceHogs, 5-4
AHL San Diego Gulls

Gulls Down IceHogs, 5-4

Published on February 21, 2026 under American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


The San Diego Gulls erased three separate deficits and went a perfect 3-for-3 on the power play to defeat the Rockford IceHogs 5-4 at BMO Center tonight. Skating in the first contest of a four-game season series with Rockford, the Gulls are now 4-0-0-0 all-time at BMO Center. The Gulls have points in seven of their last eight games and improve to 23-15-6-4 on the season.

Sasha Pastujov extended his point streak to five games with a pair of power play goals and an assist tonight for his first three-point game of the campaign. Pastujov's two power play goals tonight is his first career multi-power play goal game. Pastujov leads all Gulls skaters with 12-25=37 points and has 3-5=8 points over his five-game point streak.

Ryan Carpenter registered his second straight multi-point effort scoring his 11th goal and collecting his 18th assist. Carpenter now has 11-18) points on the year which is good for third most on the team.

Stian Solberg netted his first career two-goal game tonight scoring his seventh and eighth goals of the season. Solberg's eight goals rank second among AHL rookie defensemen while he leads all San Diego blueliners in goals.

Matthew Phillips tallied his 200th career AHL assist tonight. He added another assist for his 10th multi-point effort of the season to bring his season total to 10-25=35 points, which ranks second among all Gulls skaters.

Tristan Luneau collected a pair of assists tonight for his third two-assist night of the season. Luneau's 4-14=18 points rank second among San Diego defensemen.

Sam Colangelo and Cal Burke each tallied an assist.

Calle Clang stopped 23-of-27 shots for his 12th win of the season, setting a new single-season AHL career best.

The Gulls close out the weekend tomorrow with one more tilt against the IceHogs at BMO Center (2 p.m. PST). ‚

POSTGAME QUOTES ‚

SAN DIEGO GULLS ‚

Left winger Sasha Pastujov On tonight's game against Rockford

I think we came out a bit slow but 3-1 is a big wake up call. All year we've been resilient, so we knew we'd be able to find a way if we just leaned on each other and ultimately, we did.

On going 3-for-3 on the power play

I think just staying with it. Last game we had plenty of chances to take over the game with the 5-on-3 and the 4-on-3 and we didn't get the result. We liked our process, we thought we had a lot of chances last game so that was the message today. Stay with it and we'll break through. 3-for-3 is awesome, it's huge. Especially in that first when we were a little slow, we found a way to get on the board and give the team a little bit of juice and we had a good plan coming in. I'm just glad we could execute.

On his two powerplay goals tonight

Maybe just looking for good shooting lanes. Like I said, we really felt we had a strong game on the power play last game, and nothing went so just trying to stay consistent. Luckily, we had good screens and winning puck battles and without [Ryan] Carpenter winning every draw we don't get possession. Sam [Colangelo] and [Matthew] Phillips on the entries were great and [Tristan] Luneau's deception, all five guys were working together. It was a really good night for the power play and luckily, I was able to cash in on two of them but there's five of us out there working as a unit and to go 3-for-3 is huge.

On tomorrow's game against Rockford

We're going to build on that third period. We'll certainly watch the first, learn from it, and not let it happen again. I think we're going to learn from that third and grow on it and a strong start will be key. Maybe a little motivation watching the U.S. win gold.

Assistant coach Michael Babcock On what it took for the team to find their game tonight

I think there's a combination of things. We don't want to use the excuse that we didn't start good enough. We were fortunate enough to score a big-time goal on the power play there and it just kind of seemed like that was the way the game was going to go. We probably fought it in the first period and our game as a team slowly got better and better and we were fortunate to get the win tonight.

On going 3-for-3 on the power play We talked about it this morning.

The biggest thing was if we weren't getting our chances and it wasn't looking very good then we'd have reasons to panic. When it's going good and you don't get rewarded, you're steady on the rutter and you trust the process and we stick with it. Really happy for the guys tonight. We had tremendous puck speed, great puck support, resiliency in terms of winning our puck battles especially to lead to the first goal. Obviously, two quick ones right after that and they're huge moments for our team but the guys have been great all year. It's nice to see them get rewarded tonight and the challenge is we've got a quick turn around so we got to do it all again tomorrow.

On what he wants to see from the group tomorrow

You try to recover as quick as you can. It's definitely a quick turnaround in terms of it being a seven o'clock and four o'clock game. Get hydrated, get recharged and we'll tighten some things up for sure. Tomorrow's going to be all about our start and it's going to be a quick turnaround for them [Rockford] too but if we impose our will, we should be fine.

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American Hockey League Stories from February 21, 2026


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