Gulls Grab Point in Shootout
AHL San Diego Gulls

Gulls Grab Point in Shootout

Published on January 8, 2026 under American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


The San Diego Gulls grabbed a standings point tonight after dropping a close battle to the San Jose Barracuda 3-2 following a seven-round shootout at Pechanga Arena. San Diego now stands with a 14-9-6- 2 record on the season.

Matthew Phillips netted his eighth goal of the season with 55 seconds remaining in regulation to equalize the game at 2-2. Phillips' 8-18& points pace all Gulls skaters.

Yegor Sidorov opened the scoring for San Diego with his seventh goal of the season.

Ryan Carpenter extended his point streak to a fifth game (2-4=6) with his 15th assist of the campaign.

Judd Caulfield, Nathan Gaucher and Tristan Luneau each tallied an assist.

Calle Clang stopped 29-of-31 shots.

The Gulls hit the road for the next two games to take on the Pacific Division leading Colorado Eagles this Friday and Saturday night.

POSTGAME QUOTES ‚

SAN DIEGO GULLS

Forward Matthew Phillips

On getting a point tonight

Yeah, it's huge. I mean, obviously a disappointing result tonight and pretty flat on the bench after that five-minute power play, but the message was to just kind of regroup and put that behind us. And we battled really hard to push it to overtime and had a couple chances to win the game still, but we'll take the point.

On Calle Clang

He played outstanding. He's probably the only guy that can say he had his best game tonight. He made some huge saves, especially in overtime there, and gave us every chance in the shootout too. Clang was unreal.

On allowing first goals

It's just not good enough, to be honest. I think we need to be a lot sharper to start games. Obviously, bounces are going to happen, but it feels like we get better as games go on. But I think we can really improve and hone in on our game right from the get go.

On facing Colorado next

I think it's really exciting. I think it's a great challenge for us. It's the top team in the division. It's probably the most fun place in the American League to go play on the road, and it's a test for us, and it's going to be two really fun games.

Head coach Matt McIlvane

On the resiliency from the team tonight

It's an emotional bit for all your top guys when you get a five-minute power play in the third period, and you have an opportunity to take a lead in the game, and it felt like they might have had maybe more shots than we did on the power plays. Certainly, we didn't get the kind of looks that we were hoping for over the course of five minutes, and give some credit to their kill, but we have to look into that and see where we can get better. The response is what matters. It's the next play mentality, that part was behind us. It would have been a mistake to get lost in what was in the past, and the truth is, the third period was too up and down for the style of play that we want. Then we make our way through the last bit of the game, and it's a miracle goal by [Matthew] Phillips, but there are a lot of parts of the third that it's not really our style of play.

On the team not scoring first in the past three games

I think it's the law of averages. You don't always score first, and if you do, great, you got to keep the lead, and if you don't, get it back. You want to score first as much as you can but sometimes it doesn't happen that way. The biggest thing is that we got to be sharp and our power play early, we didn't get much, and then they strike one behind the net on our PK where it's something we were definitely ready for and we made the wrong read. Bottom line, there were a lot of very competitive parts of this game that were excellent, that are our style of play. I'm not sure that it was a full 60-minutes.

On Calle Clang's performance

Calle was great. I think from the beginning of the game, he has a calming presence back there for us, getting through the penalty kill and in overtime and the shootout and the barrage of chances. I thought he was excellent, and I thought [Nathan Gaucher's] line was excellent today too. The Gaucher, [Judd] Caulfield, and Yegor [Sidorov] line, obviously Sidorov gets on the board but, they were impactful every shift. I thought that they drove a lot of play for us.

On facing Colorado next

Great team, great opposition. We like to think we're a great team as well. We're excited for the matchup.

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American Hockey League Stories from January 8, 2026


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