Gulls Slip Past Condors in 7-4 Showdown
Published on March 20, 2026 under American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release
The San Diego Gulls defeated the Bakersfield Condors 7-4 Friday night at Pechanga Arena, giving them wins in three of their last four contests. San Diego now stands with a 28-21-8-4 record.
Tristan Luneau collected his ninth goal and 24th assist of the season, giving him points in nine of his last 10 games (5-10=15), including six multiple points in that span. Luneau ranks tied for third among all AHL skaters in points in the month of March (5-8=13). He leads Gulls defensemen with 9-24=33 points.
Matthew Phillips scored his 12th goal of the campaign, his fifth on the power play, and earned his 31st assist, which leads Gulls skaters. He ranks second among Gulls skaters in points (12-31=43) and tied for second in PPG.
Nikita Nesterenko scored his fifth goal and earned his sixth assist for his second multi-point game in his last four games (2-2=4).
Cal Burke scored his second goal and posted his ninth assist of the season, giving him 1-2=3 points in his last three games.
Stian Solberg netted his 10th goal of the season, moving him into a tie for most goals by a rookie AHL defenseman. His 10 goals also rank tied for sixth among all AHL defensemen.
Judd Caulfield scored his 16th goal of the season, giving him 16-19=35 points, ranking fourth among Gulls skaters.
Nathan Gaucher collected two assists for his third multi-assist effort of the season. He now has 14 helpers on the season, one shy of his AHL career high set in 2023-24.
Sam Colangelo earned two assists to match his assist total from last season (18). He has posted 1-5=6 points in his last four games.
Sasha Pastujov pushed his point streak to three games with his 30th helper of the season. He has 2-2=4 points in that span. He continues to lead Gulls skaters with 16-30=46 points.
Tyson Hinds and Yegor Sidorov both picked up an assist apiece.
Tomas Suchanek earned his third consecutive victory and his fifth overall, stopping 15 shots.
The Gulls host the Calgary Wranglers next for a Sunday evening matchup at Pechanga Arena (5 p.m. PDT).
POSTGAME QUOTES
SAN DIEGO GULLS
Center Nathan Gaucher
On scoring four goals in the first period
Feels good to be at home. Feels good to have our fans. I think we're comfortable playing at home as well. But we needed that start, and we got it. It's good for us.
On what was clicking offensively tonight
We were breaking out well. Not in the second period, but especially in the first and the third we broke out. You put the pucks deep and you put pressure on their defense, and our o-zone play has been really good all year and just shone today.
On the penalty kill being perfect
Dave [Manson] does a great job with us. Every detail is really, really good. He makes sure the video does well before the game. So, we just rally as a team, we want to kill those penalties, especially those four minutes late in the game. That's our job, and we did a good job today.
On keeping this momentum against Calgary
Just having the same start. We scored a bunch today so that's good for confidence, good for the team morale. We've been on a good roll, so we just keep it going.
Defenseman Tyson Hinds
On scoring four goals in the first period
I think just putting pucks in the net, having traffic over there. We did a good job, we shot a lot too and four goals, we got fortunate bounces too. So, it was a pretty good to come out the gate. It was a big thing for us coming out to get hot and keep the lead too after that. So, it was nice.
On playing in front of Tomas Suchanek
It's fun to have a goalie that battles hard every time, he never gives up. That's a big thing for us, and big thing for him too. So, it's good. We have confidence in them, and both of our goalies are playing really good these days so it's really good. Like I said, he battles hard and never gives up.
On going 4-for-4 on the penalty kill tonight
I think our kill has been pretty good. We put a lot of puck pressure on them, and they had to rim a lot of pucks. I think our faceoffs tonight were pretty good too. So, I think we did a good job putting pressure and limiting their time with the puck. I think we're just going to keep going that direction.
On Sunday's game against Calgary
We're going to focus on us. You know, play the same way that we did tonight. We played hard, played good defensively, put pucks to the net, and we were excited to be back in front of our crowd too. It's important to have a big win from our crowd before going on the road at Vancouver. So, we're excited. Head coach Matt McIlvane
On tonight's game compared to last game
We had enough chances in the last game and we had breakaways, two-on-ones, three-on-twos, quick strike chances, and a lot of similar chances to what we had tonight. It's good to watch the puck go in the net.
On the perfect penalty kill
[Dave] Manson has done a great job with the structure for the group, and we've got a group that's very committed to it. Obviously, your goaltenders are a big part of that, but we've got a group that works together and they're very focused on getting a job done.
On the offensive production tonight
What we were hoping would happen is we played a good series against Colorado, and what we were hoping was that we'd watch our team carry some confidence from that. I think we saw some of that tonight. Anytime that you have this many guys getting rewarded, I think that seeds a little bit more confidence that we can carry.
On what he wants to see in Sunday's contest against Calgary
An opportunity to practice tomorrow and just run some things off. Then we've got a Calgary team that's very dangerous offensively. I think that our game is going to be more focused on ourselves and continuing to build our game, but we know where you got a big challenge ahead of us.
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