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AHL San Diego Gulls

Gulls Take Sixth Straight Win, 4-1

February 11, 2018 - American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


San Diego won a season-high sixth consecutive game following a 4-1 victory over the San Jose Barracuda today at SAP Center. The six consecutive wins surpassed the previous season high of five set from Dec. 9-23 and tie the second longest win streak in franchise history set from Jan. 25-Feb. 7, 2017. The Gulls have also won five consecutive road games dating back to Jan. 3, tied for the longest road win streak in San Diego history (Jan. 25-Feb. 7, 2017). San Diego swept the weekend back-to-back over the Barracuda after scoring four unanswered goals to mark the second comeback win on the weekend and 13th overall this season.

San Diego killed all six San Jose power plays and have now killed 21 straight penalties, a season high and the second-most consecutive penalties killed in club history behind the 26-straight kills from Dec. 5-27 2015. The Gulls have also killed 31 of the last 32 (96.9%) opposition power plays the last nine games. San Diego has also gone six games without allowing a power-play goal, the longest such streak in Gulls history.

Reto Berra stopped 33-of-34 shots en route to his 11th win of the season. Berra has won four consecutive road starts and is 9-2-0 with a 2.60 goals-against average (GAA) and .920 save percentage (SV%) in 11 road appearances this season. Berra is also 6-2-0 in his last eight appearances, posting a 2.00 GAA and .943 SV%.

Nic Kerdiles collected his third multi-point effort in his last four games with a goal and assist (1-1=2). The goal marked his ninth of the season at 16:15 of the first period to open the scoring for San Diego. Kerdiles now has 3-4=7 points in his last five games and 18 points (9-9=18) in his last 21 games.

Kalle Kossila recorded his 11th multi-point game of the season with a goal and assist (1-1=2). Kossila scored his 13th goal of the season with 8.5 seconds remaining in the opening period, his fourth goal in as many games (4-2=6). Kossila has scored a team-leading 13-23=36 points in 32 games this season, with his 1.13 points-per game ranked fourth among league leaders (minimum 20 games played).

Dennis Rasmussen scored his second goal of the weekend, his fourth tally of the season at 6:41 of the second period. Defenseman Keaton Thompson recorded one of his two assists on the goal, his first multi-assist game (0-2=2) of the season and fourth career multi-point effort. Thompson earned three assists on the weekend.

Eric Fehr scored for the second straight game, his team-leading 15th goal of the season at 17:33 of the second period. Fehr has scored 12 goals (12-7=19) in his last 23 games. Kevin Roy earned his 11th assist and 20th point of the season on the goal, and defenseman Steven Oleksy tallied his second assist (0-2=2) of the game on the play. Oleksy earned his fourth multi-point game of the campaign and third in his last five contests (1-5=6). Oleksy also recorded a season-high +3 rating.

Andy Welinski collected his 20th assist of the season and fourth in his last five games (0-4=4). His 6-20=26 points lead club defensemen and rank tied for second among team leaders.

POSTGAME QUOTES

San Diego Gulls

Steven Oleksy

On the team's goaltending performances this weekend

Kevin (Boyle) yesterday and obviously Yogi (Reto Berra) today, it was a great effort on their part. Those afternoon games are a little bit tough. I think it's on us to prepare for those. With the time change, we are used to playing at seven o'clock and things like that, some of the guys are still trying to figure out how to get ready for those earlier games. Kudos to the goalies for keeping us in it and guys figuring out what they had to do to get going.

On overcoming a slow start

I think yesterday it took us a little bit more, but it was a good character win. I think we kind of carried that over. Obviously it took us a little bit to get going there but once we figured it out, I think we kept it rolling. Both games we had different guys contributing each game. That's huge when everyone can contribute in their own way.

On climbing the Pacific Division standings

I think that has been our main focus all season, focusing on what we can do. Obviously the wins are what we can control, and whether you are gaining ground or you are separating yourself we can't look at that. We just have to focus on getting our two points every night. I think we have done that over the last course here.

Reto Berra

On overcoming a slow start

They scored right away on the first shot and we weren't really happy with the first period, but we did a good job on penalty killing, the 5-on-3, so we responded really good for the second period. So at the end we were happy.

On the penalty kill

I can tell we are confident on our penalty killing. You need some luck too, the puck is bouncing for us right now but to get luck you need to work hard and that is what we are doing. We work hard and we don't make it easy for the other team, for the other power play so we were happy and we have fun with each other and this is how it all comes together this is how we play right now.

On the overall confidence of the team

We all can see that we are an elite team and we want to play for the top place in the standings, so if we have a bad period we are not happy and we try to respond. Obviously you can tell that every day that we come to work for practice or a game and at the end if you do that you have a good chance to have success.

Head Coach Dallas Eakins

On the win

Between Reto Berra and our penalty kill tonight I thought those were the major factors. Berra was excellent, our penalty kill was excellent and that kept it close when we needed it to be.

On the penalty kill

If you can win the opening faceoff and get it down the ice you are not killing a two-minute penalty anymore but a minute and a half or less, so we have been doing a very good job of that as of late. When you look at our percentage for the season it doesn't look great, but over the last 20 games I think we are running at about 90 percent which is excellent. Our goal going into every game now is we just want 100 percent and we have been able to pull that off here the last few games.

On the goals scored this afternoon

We scored some nice goals tonight. The importance of being ready to score and a perfect example of that is when Fehr scored and Kevin Roy makes an unbelievable play to the back door. A lot of players wouldn't be ready for that, but with Fehr's experience, that NHL experience, certainly that was a great lesson for our other forwards to always be ready. You never know when that puck is coming to you.

On the team pushing themselves to be better

They are critical. We have talked about it a lot. The game tonight is as critical as the last game of the season against Tucson. Why would we try any less now than we would then? I think our group understands that these are critical games every night. We are in an extremely tight division and a bad weekend can put you down quickly. We're just into it that we just want to win today and we will work about everything else at another time.

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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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