Reign Snap Three-Game Skid with 6-1 Victory over Heat
February 18, 2016 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Ontario Reign News Release
Ontario Reign Skate up the Ice vs. the Stockton Heat
(Ontario Reign)
Ontario, CA - Forward Andrew Crescenzi scored a goal and tallied two assists and forward Sean Backman scored twice to propel the Ontario Reign (29-13-3-1) past the Stockton Heat (20-20-1-2), 6-1, in front of a sellout crowd of 9,491 on Wednesday night at Citizens Business Bank Arena.
In his return to Ontario, netminder Peter Budaj made 20 saves on 21 attempts for his AHL-leading 27th win of the season.
"Everybody contributed to the win," said Budaj. "A lot of guys scored goals and got points and that's good for our team to get over that hump of three games that we lost. The guys played really great in front of me and that made my job much easier."
Box Score
Ontario forward Valentin Zykov opened the scoring in the first period on a Crescenzi feed and fired the puck past the glove of netminder Kevin Poulin at 11:37.
From the left circle, forward Drew Shore tied it up for Stockton with a shorthanded goal unassisted at 19:33. With the goal, Shore extends his point streak (two goals, three assists) to five games. Ontario outshot the Heat, 15-8 in the first 20 minutes of regulation.
In the middle stanza, forward Michael Mersch put the Reign up for good, taking a feed from defenseman Kurtis MacDermid and scoring a breakaway goal 26 seconds in. Less than two minutes later, forward Paul Bissonnette made a clean pass to Crescenzi who fired the puck in for a 3-1 lead.
"First of all, it was good to get the points after a three-game skid," said Crescenzi. "I think the team played well and my line mates helped me out with that."
The Reign continued their onslaught and found success again at 19:34 of the same frame as forward Jordan Samuels-Thomas buried a one-timer past Poulin, stretching the lead to three goals. Poulin finished with 24 stops on 29 chances.
Backman broke open the final period with a goal at 51 seconds assisted by defenseman Vincent LoVerde. LoVerde circled the zone and fired a pass through traffic to Backman in the right circle. Forward Jonny Brodzinski earned the secondary assist. At 6:55, Backman scored again, catching the puck at the blue line and put it down to his stick for his 13th of the season assisted by Nic Dowd to close out the scoring.
Heat netminder Kent Simpson finished the contest with four saves on five shots.
"This win is big. In seven game segments, we need to come out at least 500 or more and we started out 0-3 on this one so it's good to get on the winning track and win a few more games to come ahead of that," said Crescenzi.
Images from this story
 Ontario Reign Skate up the Ice vs. the Stockton Heat |
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