Sports stats

AHL San Diego Gulls

Shootout Loss Earns Gulls a Point

December 18, 2019 - American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


San Diego opened a three-game homestand with a 3-2 shootout loss to the Grand Rapids Griffins at Pechanga Arena San Diego.

The Gulls scored their ninth shorthanded goal the last 16 games tonight, and continue to lead the Western Conference in shorthanded goals (9), while ranking second among AHL clubs. The Gulls also lead the AHL with six shorthanded goals at home.

Alex Broadhurst scored his fourth goal and third shorthanded tally of the season 49 seconds into the second period. With the goal, Broadhurst tied the franchise mark for single-season shorthanded goals, matching the marks set previously by Sam Carrick (2018-19), Chris Wagner (2016-17) and Jordan Samuels-Thomas (2016-17). Broadhurst has now recorded 1-3=4 points his last five games.

Daniel Sprong scored at 6:33 of the third period to tie the game at 2-2. Sprong's seventh goal extends his team lead in scoring (7-12=19) and gives seven points the last six games (3-4=7) in addition to 4-8=12 points his last 13 contests.

Antoine Morand earned his first career shorthanded point (assist) and Josh Mahura recorded his third assist on Sprong's goal

Anthony Stolarz made a season-high 40 shots in regulation and overtime in the shootout defeat.

The Gulls will continue the homestand on Friday, Dec. 20 vs. San Jose (7 p.m.).

POSTGAME QUOTES

San Diego Gulls

Daniel Sprong

On his game-tying goal

We wanted to have a good third and I felt like we did. We had a lot of good chances. In overtime we had some good opportunities too. It was hard, [Jimmy Howard] is an NHL goalie. When they come down for conditioning, you have to put a lot of pucks on net to beat him, but he played a hell of a game. We have to give him credit, but we need to be better in the first two periods.

On beating Howard for the goal

He's not an AHL goalie, so when you come down on him you have to change your mindset of how you want to play. I think with goalies down here, you have a little bit more leeway of where you can put it. With a goalie with that established, you try to change it up. So I tried to go five-hole and no luck, but fortunately he let go of a rebound and I got right back on it and put it in. But when you play against a goalie like that, you try different things. You see what other goalies want to do, so it was a good test for us. I thought we handled it well. We would like to get more goals on him, but he played well.

On battling back

We've been doing quite a bit of battling back. We want to play with a lead and all four lines lines going. We have to do a better job starting the game off. That should be the plan going on with this week.

Alex Broadhurst

On tying the game in the third period

It shows a lot of will and a lot of character. I thought we had a great bench all night with a lot of positivity and keeping guys up that had a bad shift. I thought we played a really good game and it could have gone either way in overtime. A couple crossbars and ending in a shootout loss is disappointing, but we shouldn't hang our heads.

On Grand Rapids

They play a hard game. I've been playing against them my whole career. They're always playing hard down low. They make simple plays and put pucks toward the net, and sometimes that's the best way to play hockey. For next time we play them, we are going to have to watch some video and clean some stuff up.

On the team's shorthanded scoring

We have a lot of pride in that. It wins and loses games in this league, the penalty kill and power play. We work hard at it. There's a lot of changes sometimes with different teams with different matchups, but it's been a great job by our penalty kill guys. You have to tip the cap to them and hope we can keep getting goals.

Anthony Stolarz

On facing 43 shots

They have a big, physical team and a lot of big guys up front. They like to get guys in front and work the puck from low to high and take shots. When you have a team like that, it gets you running around a little bit. They have big boys out there, so it was pretty difficult to fight some of those screens out there.

On how he stayed focused

Controlling the first rebound and not letting anything get away from me and if it did then the guys were right there to clean it up for me. It felt like I was in the zone, and I'm just trying to match the guy down at the other end. Jimmy Howard has a plethora of experience and he's a very good goalie. So going into tonight, I knew I had to be sharp.

On battling back

Coming back and getting that point is huge. With the standing being so tight, it's a matter of getting to .500 and then getting over the hump. It seems like every time we get there, we take a step back and we can't get over that hump. We have two games left before Christmas break and we're going to get to .500.

On the standings

Points are huge. Obviously, the start we had this year dug us into a hole and now we have to climb out of it if we want to be a competitive team and be in the hunt. It's great to see that we have the resiliency to battle back and not let an early lead get us down. From here on out, we have to keep the mentality that no matter what the score is we're always in it.

Head Coach Kevin Dineen

On adjustments for second game against Griffins

We had a different lineup and they had a pretty good lineup, too. When you go against a goalie like Jimmy Howard, I was impressed with how both goaltenders played. Stolarz made some big saves for us. As far as the adjustments go, sometimes we have a different lineup tonight and you coach to your personnel and I like the way we pushed back at different points of the game. Would have been nice to have gotten an extra point at home.

On battling back

The game fluctuates both ways. Your thought process is that you don't want to have a different style of play, meaning that you play one way when you're up and one way when you're down. You want a level of consistency in your game and I think we had that. As we got later in the game, we make some adjustments to put pressure on you, leaving ourselves more vulnerable in most situations. Earlier, it was nice to see Sprong go out and score a big goal for us.

On Stolarz

He has a level of composure. He is a big guy and he looks big in net. You have some goalies that are big, but you end up seeing some holes in them. Even the first goal was a seeing-eye shot, just found its way in on a bit of a broken play. He has a level of composure of his game that our team thrives on and he's played a solid brand of hockey for us.

On collecting points

We have to keep picking away here. We have a little bit of the flu running through the team and guys are a little beat up. We will rest tomorrow and come back with some energy and get a good practice. We look forward to coming out with a solid weekend.

Check out the San Diego Gulls Statistics



American Hockey League Stories from December 18, 2019


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.

Other Recent San Diego Gulls Stories



Sports Statistics from the Stats Crew
OurSports Central