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AHL San Diego Gulls

Gulls Held off at Iowa

January 29, 2022 - American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


The San Diego Gulls dropped a 3-2 decision to the Iowa Wild tonight at Wells Fargo Arena.

Greg Printz scored his third goal of the season with 1:20 remaining in the first period. Brogan Rafferty earned the primary assist on the play for assists in back-to-back games (0-2=2) and now ranks second among Gulls blueliners in assists and points with 3-9=12.

Benoit-Olivier Groulx tied his season-high point streak of three games (2-1=3) with his fifth goal of the season.

Hunter Drew and Alex Limoges earned assists. Limoges has points in consecutive games (1-1=2) and five of his last seven games overall (4-1=5).

Olle Eriksson Ek made 17 saves in the setback.

The Gulls conclude their weekend back-to-back with the Iowa Wild tomorrow, Jan. 29 at Wells Fargo Arena (4 p.m. PT).

POSTGAME QUOTES

San Diego Gulls

Head Coach Joel Bouchard

On tonight's game:

We came out of the gate on the road really well. I thought we came out pretty good. It's been tough the last few games, right? We lost some games and we did good, but we lost. I think tonight the guys had good intention. We fought through. We didn't connect on a couple of the scoring chances that would have been good, I think, to give guys a little bit of spirit. They get a couple of bounce, and I don't like to blame it on bounce, but when you're losing a few games, now it's not going in as much. But I still liked a lot of engagement in the game. I don't think we got dominated, far from it. I thought we had some really good o-zone time today and some good looks offensively. See as a coach, we always can say "well we lost, it's not good enough." Yeah, I get it. You know what, you're right, but on the flipside I gotta keep working with the guys and the process through that adversity that we're going through right now. And when they're not right, I'll tell you if we got very sloppy or the effort or the guys not protecting themselves on the ice. They showed up, they work hard. The scoreboard is one thing, but I cannot just coach the scoreboard. Cause if I do that, then it'll just be chaotic. If the attitude is right...we asked to be more disciplined, we were tonight. So I gotta stay with the process of what we're trying to accomplish and let's see where we are as we get later on in the season.

On Iowa's goals off faceoff wins:

I bet you they're all faceoff plays as much as they are you lose faceoff and then it falls right on their blade then they got a chance to bring the puck to the net. They were all long shots, to be honest. It's not like we got beat by a play backdoor. We made a couple of good faceoff play and didn't score on it and we had open nets. So, now those pucks find a hole to get in. We look at the replay and it was just like "okay." It just went in tonight for them on those goals. It's unfortunate. It's what it is. Obviously, like I said, we're not looking for excuses, but the three long shot that go in and not even blaming the goalie, to be honest. It just kinda, got tipped, I think, on two of them. At the end of the day you kinda park it. I told the guys go to sleep, get some fluid, get some food. My job's to work with them. We had three guys that came back, Brouillard and Drew and Perreault, that came back as forward. We're gonna keep working with them. For me, as long as they have a good attitude, they compete, they work in the process, they stick together, I'll work with them. The only time I got mad this year is when we let the other team kinda take over us and we didn't have any push back. We did have a push back tonight, 100%.

On generating offense tonight:

Wednesday was a little different. I just didn't think the game was that lopsided compared to the shot clock. I think tonight we did have some looks. There's stuff that we're working with players to, not just have shots on net but a high-quality shot and high scoring chances. So, a player can shoot a player can shoot from 60 feet right in the middle of the net, well, there's no chance of scoring. So instead of trying to play somewhere else or a pass that could create and then there's no shot on net cause it doesn't result. That's why in the process of working with young players, to force them to be more offensive. I think we created a lot of offense tonight in some way, and sometimes we didn't. We gotta push them to be better. We did have some good looks. I feel like we got a couple of goals tonight and I'm gonna push the guys so we bear down more on some of the scoring chances we had. We had like five primary scoring chances from Moisan to Rafferty to Printz twice, and he scored a nice goal, but then we're not ending up scoring. So, what does it do? It puts more pressure on the guys. You score a couple of goals there we might be talking about a 4-3 game. So, I cannot just be looking at the scoreboard. I gotta look at the process. That being said, we're gonna push to finish more on those.

Greg Printz

On the loss:

It's definitely tough; being on a three-game, now a four-game losing streak makes it a little tougher. It's just that we know we played a good game. We deserved to win, but we just didn't capitalize on some of our chances. So, it definitely stings a little bit, but we'll get back at it, regroup and be ready to play tomorrow.

On his goal:

Yeah. It started on the o-zone faceoff. I think we lost it, kind of went around the boards. Raffey (Rafferty) pinched in a little bit, made a good play, tried to get to the net. I was on the ice so I stopped it, turned and just ripped it as hard as I could and it ended up going in the back of the net so I was pretty excited about that.

On capitalizing on more of their scoring chances:

I think that's definitely part of the game plan. Just knowing their goalie, knowing what his tendencies are and trying to exploit those. It's definitely something we're going to be focusing on. No practice, I don't think, before the game tomorrow so we won't be able to practice anything of it, but it's going in with a mindset that we need to win and we'll do anything that it takes.

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