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AHL San Diego Gulls

Gulls March over Colorado for Weekend Sweep

November 3, 2019 - American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


The Gulls defeated the Colorado Eagles 5-2 tonight to sweep their weekend series at Pechanga Arena San Diego. The Gulls improved to 4-0-0-0 against Colorado when hosting Military Weekend dating to last season.

San Diego scored two power-play goals tonight and have tallied goals on the man advantage in four consecutive games, going 5-for-20 in that span (25.0%). The Gulls also killed all four penalties tonight and have killed 15 of the opposition's last 16 power-play chances (93.8%).

Daniel Sprong opened the scoring on the power play at 2:04 of the first period, his third of the season, and added an assist for consecutive multi-point games this weekend (2-2=4).

Brendan Guhle earned his first points at a Gull, scoring his first goal at 15:10 of the first period and adding for his first multi-point game of the season.

Isac Lundestrom netted his second goal in as many nights (PPG) at 16:40 of the first period. Daniel Sprong earned his third point (1-2=3) the last two games with an assist.

Alex Broadhurst scored shorthanded (unassisted) at 8:07 of the second period to mark his first goal and point for San Diego. The shorthanded goal marked San Diego's first of 2019-20.

Chase De Leo tallied his first goal of the season (unassisted) 51 seconds into the third period.

Justin Kloos picked up his first multi-point effort of the season with three assists (0-3=3), his highest single-game point total since joining the Gulls Jan. 21, 2019 (previous: two points; last: Mar. 23, 2019 vs. Ontario (1-1=2).

Jani Hakanpaa recorded two assists (0-2=2) for his first multi-point game as a Gull. Hakanpaa now has three assists his last two games (0-3=3).

Blake Pietila collected an assist on the Lundestrom goal, his fourth point the last two games (1-3=4). Kiefer Sherwood tallied his second assist of the weekend.

Anthony Stolarz stopped 27-of-29 shots to pick up back-to-back wins on the weekend.

Tonight's attendance was 8,379.

San Diego will open a three-game road trip beginning Friday, Nov. 8 at Bakersfield (7 p.m.). The road trip also includes stops in San Jose (Sunday, Nov. 10) and Stockton (Monday, Nov. 11).

POSTGAME QUOTES

San Diego Gulls

Anthony Stolarz

On back-to-back starts

It's exciting for sure. Over the course of the last two years, I've really only had one stint where I consistently played and that was in Philadelphia last year. Getting to start back-to-back games gets your confidence up. Tonight was an overall team effort. The guys were really helping battle out there.

On the defensive effort

The guys were sacrificing their bodies and blocking shots. We had really good sticks, they had some chances coming in late, their defenseman coming up in the rush, and the boys did a great job tonight getting their sticks in passing lanes and disrupting their plays. You can see the offensive talent that we have. When we play a full 60 minutes, we're a good hockey team.

On the turning point

The one in Ontario (Oct. 26) was a tough one to swallow, it was probably our most complete effort of the year. It kind of left a bad taste in our mouths, so we wanted to go out there Friday night and set the tone. Obviously, it's a big weekend, you don't want to hit the panic button at 0-6. We knew we had to come out big. To get two wins this weekend gets our confidence up. If you look ahead, we have four games in six days next week. If we can continue this hot play and carry it over into the next four games.

On offensive production

As a goalie, we love seeing that. It takes the pressure off. You just have to worry about making that first save, controlling that rebound and not giving up any second chances. I think tonight there was a couple of rebounds, but the guys did a good job of clearing out the second chances in front, and the defensemen did a really good job boxing people out so I was able to see that first shot.

Alex Broadhurst

On his goal

I think we were just doing a great job on the kill on the breakouts, giving them no options coming into our zone. We just got a lucky bounce there and (Justin) Kloos made a great heads-up play to me. It was a pretty good handle and a great finish. I was happy with it.

On special teams

We struggled early on with both (the power play and penalty kill). It's an important part of the game. Sometimes it wins you games and sometimes it loses you games. We knew that going in so we worked a lot on it in practice these last couple of weeks and it's good to see it's paying off.

On the defensive effort

We were just firing on all cylinders tonight. Our defense, our forwards and our goaltender just worked as one unit. We had a great bench and a lot of talk. It was just a fun night.

On team chemistry

We have a lot of new bodies here, a lot of new faces. We're just trying to get used to each other, the coaching staff and the systems. We're figuring it out now and I'm glad to see we're winning.

Head Coach Kevin Dineen

On the defensive effort

We started out with our goaltender making some really timely saves for us. We pushed everything to the outside. We didn't leave the puck in the middle of the ice, which usually ends up creating quality scoring chances for the opponent. We kept that to a minimum tonight. Definitely solid on the defensive side, which we envisioned this year. We want an offense that's going to come a bit more naturally and we are starting to figure out how to play that success.

On special teams

Assistant coaches David (Urquhart) and Sylvain (Lefebvre) do an excellent job with their respective special teams. You give a lot of credit to them. When it comes to penalty killing, there's a work ethic and structure there and we followed that to a T against a highly-powerful team out there. On the power-play side, there's a belief that when you have control of the puck and have support in areas then good things will follow. We had some really nice plays made as well, so it's a testament to our skill set too.

On Anthony Stolarz

He's a big guy and really handles the puck well. He makes the game easy for his defensemen because he's able to make an outlet pass, so he can break up an opponent's forecheck. When he makes a save, he doesn't make it look difficult, he makes it look big.

On most happy about with the weekend

Scoring-wise it was distributed throughout our lineup. A lot of guys really picked up their game offensively, we found our way in that area. Overall, just recognizing where we were in the season and it's early [November], so you don't want to have a desperation to your game, but we certainly played like these were must-wins. It's nice to come out and have the effort rewarded with the points.

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