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Gulls Knockout San Jose, 5-2

April 25, 2019 - American Hockey League (AHL) - San Diego Gulls News Release


The Gulls defeated the San Jose Barracuda 5-2 in Game 4 to clinch the First Round series, 3-1, at SAP Center. San Diego advances to the Pacific Division Finals to face either the Bakersfield Condors or Colorado Eagles in a best-of-seven series beginning next week.

San Diego advances to the Pacific Division Finals for the third time in four seasons, and is the only team in the division to advance beyond the First Round on multiple occasions. With their third series win all-time, the Gulls also matched Texas (three in 2018) as the only Pacific Division clubs to win three series' since the division's inception in 2015.

The Gulls join Toronto (4) as the only AHL clubs to advance to the Division Finals on three or more occasions (Grand Rapids, Hershey and Syracuse have done so twice each and are currently still in the midst of their respective First Round series').

San Diego won both road contests of the series to improve to 7-0-2-0 their past nine road games dating to the regular season, in addition to collecting points in 24 of the last 28 road contests (18-4-4-2).

Sam Carrick scored his second goal of the series to mark his sixth postseason goal for San Diego, a new club record. His sixth career playoff goal (6-7=13) surpasses the five scored by Chris Mueller in 2016. Carrick recorded 2-4=6 points in the series to lead San Diego assists and co-lead the club in scoring.

Sam Steel scored for the third straight game and also tallied an assist for his second multi-point effort of the First Round (1-1=2). Steel recorded points in all four games (3-3=6) during the series to co-lead the Gulls in scoring. Steel is the second Gulls rookie to score three goals in a postseason series and the first to record four points to begin a postseason career, matching Nick Ritchie's three goals and points in his first four games during the First Round of the 2016 postseason.

Chase De Leo became the first Gull to score in each of the first four games to begin a postseason and series with an empty-net goal. De Leo also tied the club mark for goals in a series (4) set on four previous occasions (last: Sam Carrick in the 2017 Pacific Division Finals vs. San Jose). De Leo also owns the longest goal streak in Gulls postseason history (4-1=3), surpassing the three straight games with a goal by Carrick from May 6-12, 2017 in the Pacific Division Finals (3-1=4). De Leo finished the series leading San Diego in goals and co-leads the AHL playoffs in goals.

Andy Welinski scored his first career playoff goal (PPG) and his second point of the series. Adam Cracknell scored for the second straight game to mark his second goal and third point of the series (2-1=3).

Max Jones earned his third assist the last two games (0-3=3). Ben Street recorded an assist on Carrick's for his fourth point of the series (1-3=4), while Kalle Kossila and Corey Tropp each earned their first assists of the series on the Welinski power-play goal. Matt Berry earned his second assist of the series on Cracknell's goal with Jack Kopacka recording his first career playoff point with the secondary assist on the goal.

Jeff Glass stopped 30-of-32 shots to earn his third win of the postseason. Glass also improved to a perfect 4-0 with a 1.73 goals-against average (GAA) and .944 save percentage (SV%) with his second straight road win of the series. He also posted a 3-1 mark in the series with a 2.32 GAA and .917 SV% in four contests.

The Gulls Pacific Division Finals opponent (Bakersfield Condors or Colorado Eagles), dates and times will be released by the AHL at a future date.

POSTGAME QUOTES

San Diego Gulls

Sam Carrick

On advancing to the Pacific Division Finals

It feels good. Obviously, that's our goal, to go all the way. That's the first series out of the way. It's a good feeling right now, but we know at the same time that it's only going to get harder from here.

On his goal to tie the game at 1-1

Those are exactly the kind of goals that we want to score. That's a playoff goal. All I did was chip it in deep and (Ben Street) was awesome on the forecheck. He got in there, tied up the guy, poked the puck free and (Corey Tropp) was the second forward there. He drew two guys to him and left me all alone in front. I had the easy job just putting it in the net so credit to my two linemates there for getting the job done. Those are the goals we're going to need down the stretch.

On time to recover before the next series

It's going to be nice to let the bodies recover. Not everyone is playing at 100 percent right now so guys are going to be able to heal up a little bit here in a week. We want to keep the momentum going at the same time. We're not going to take too much rest here and get out of shape. We're going to keep the pedal to the metal here and probably have some hard practices to stay in game shape. We'll be ready to go for the next series.

Jaycob Megna

On advancing to the Pacific Division Finals

It's definitely exciting. We're a group that has high expectations and this was certainly in our goals. It's something that we've talked about all year. It's just the next step in the progression here.

On resiliency of the team after another comeback win

It's a bad habit that we've seemed to develop this series, but we have a really good group in there. We don't worry about what the score may be. We just worry about how we're playing and the way we need to play to be successful. It seems like once we get going, we get in a good rhythm and start to take over.

On time to recover before the next series

We definitely need to get our rest, we've got some time here. We'll have some short, but intense practices and start game planning for whoever is next.

Head Coach Dallas Eakins

On advancing to the Pacific Division Finals

I think it says a lot about our group in there, those guys that lace up their skates. They're a tight group. Obviously, they know that playing on the road is tough to do, but they welcome the challenge. I think it says tons about our leadership group. Even the leadership of the younger guys, jumping in there and playing a real solid road game.

On resiliency of the team after another comeback win

It goes to our mantra, 'It doesn't matter.' No matter what kind of situation we've been in or any kind of circumstance, we've been able to find a way on most nights to claw our way out of it. We didn't have a great start there tonight. We were down early and we couldn't find our way. As always, we eventually got going. You look at tonight, the critical goal with (Adam Cracknell, Matt Berry and Jack Kopacka), right when you weren't sure which way the game was going to tilt. That line coming out and getting that goal at that point just shows there's a line that maybe plays a little bit less minutes than everybody else, but just a massive contribution tonight.

On time to recover before the next series

Well we'll figure out what the schedule is going to be first, but I think we're going to have a fairly long break, so we'll get with the assistants here. It will be a little bit of both. It's going to be rest first. We'll probably have to ramp it up and have a few good, hard days in there and then probably rest again and then really start to prepare. We'll just wait to see what the next few days brings.


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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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