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AHL San Diego Gulls

Gulls Drop Opener to Condors

October 5, 2019 - American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


The Gulls opened the 2019-20 regular season with a 2-1 loss to the Bakersfield Condors at Mechanics Bank Arena.

Kiefer Sherwood scored San Diego's first goal of the season at 7:41 mark of the second period. Daniel Sprong earned the lone assist, his first point as a Gull.

In his San Diego debut, Anthony Stolarz stopped 26-of-28 shots in the setback.

Six other Gulls made their San Diego debut, including Hunter Drew (professional debut), Jani Hakanpaa, Blake Pietila, Andrew Poturalski, Sprong and Chris Wideman.

Gulls will visit San Jose on Friday, Oct. 11 (7 p.m.) and Stockton on Saturday, Oct. 12 (6 p.m.) before returning home to San Diego for their home opener Friday, Oct. 18 at Pechanga Arena San Diego (7 p.m.).

POSTGAME QUOTES

San Diego Gulls

Anthony Stolarz

On the shift of momentum in the second period

I think we just settled in honestly. This being their home opener, we knew they were going to have a big push in the first. We came out a little slow, but some guys just came back earlier in the week. We just have to get some familiarity with each other and I think once the second period hit, we started playing our game a little more.

On the Gulls defense effort

I think it was the guy's willingness to block shots. When you have a team like that, guys willing to sacrifice their bodies, it really rallies the team and the guys on the bench feed off that. The (defensemen) did a great job of cleaning out some of the rebounds I left out. Wingers and some of the (defensemen) block shots and it makes my job a lot easier.

On his save late in the third period

I was actually on my way to the bench there to get the extra attacker. I just tried to get back to my crease to reset and get into position. I took a quick look and noticed he was a (right-handed player) so there really wasn't a one-timer chance. I just tried to get the biggest push I could to get across and cover as much of the net as possible.

On the positives of the game

Our battle in the second and third. They're a good team. I think we're going to be battling with them all year for points. Especially early on, you're going to want to set the tone and I think we did a great job in showing some fight and not giving up in the second or third. Work on some things this week in practice, but I definitely think we were turning up in the second half of that game.

Kiefer Sherwood

On the message in the first intermission

Play simple, take care of the puck in all three zones and getting the pucks deep so we could establish our forecheck.

On his goal

I think it started off a good stick on the forecheck. We finally got them hemmed in a little bit and hit it to (Sprong) and he made a great play, acting like he was about to shoot it and made a great pass and I put it in.

On team chemistry

It's the first game of the season, probably a little sloppier than we would've liked, but we should probably just simplify a little bit more. We would like to give up a little fewer odd-man rushes again, but we'll sort through that stuff and get back to work.

On the positives of the game

If we stay structured and keep it simple with our offense, we have high-caliber guys in this locker room on both end of the ice. Just keeping it simple and sorting a couple of things out and hopefully we'll get on the board.

Head Coach Kevin Dineen

On the message in the first intermission

It wasn't a coaching thing. I think we were overwhelmed early. It looked like a really enjoyable game for them to play. They won all their puck battles, they were first to pucks, they were making plays. It's something we're going to have to address. That kind of happened at our last game at home in Anaheim as well. We have to make sure we're ready for the puck drop and have our game sorted out. I liked our pushback. It's just very early on in the season and you like to think that you addressed a lot of things in training camp. All of a sudden the game kicks up and you realize that there are areas to continue to work on. We have a long week that will keep us busy and our preparation will be much more solid heading into next week.

On team chemistry

I liked some players for us tonight. I think a lot of our lines have some similarities to them. There's some skill on every line and there's a little bit of bite there as well so we have to find an overall team chemistry that means it's not shift to shift or period to period. There's a level of consistency to the way we play.

On Sherwood's goal

That was a nice play by (Sprong). He certainly showed a level of patience with the puck. I thought he was going to shoot it and Kiefer just went to the front of the net. You look at all of the goals scored at whatever level, so many are scored from right in that area so that's something we're going to continue to harp on. To get to that area and that will make a difference for us.

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