AHL San Diego Gulls

Slow Start Equals Bad Loss

Published on March 21, 2021 under American Hockey League (AHL)
San Diego Gulls News Release


The Gulls fell 6-2 to the Tucson Roadrunners tonight at Tucson Convention Center Arena.

Benoit-Olivier Groulx scored his fifth goal of the season at the 2:01 mark of the first period. Groulx has earned 4-3=7 points over his last 11 games. Nikolas Brouillard picked up the lone assist on the goal for his third point of the campaign (0-3=3).

Chase De Leo recorded a power-play goal 36-seconds into the second period to mark his sixth goal of the season. Josh Mahura recorded the primary assist to extend his point and assist streak to three games (0-3=3).

Andrew Poturalski recorded a power-play assist to mark his 12th helper of the season and extend his point streak to three games (2-1=3). Poturalski ranks tied for second in the AHL in assists and tied for third in power-play assists.

Jeff Glass made 23 saves including a penalty shot attempt by Tucson's Ryan McGregor.

San Diego and Tucson will meet again tomorrow, Mar. 21 (5 p.m.) at Tucson Convention Center Arena to conclude their weekend series.

POSTGAME QUOTES

Chase De Leo

On the game

Not much to say after this one. It's not very fun when you get down like that in the first period. We've just got to find a way to turn the ship around and start playing some positive hockey. It's obviously never fun losing. We've got to talk about in our group and rebound tomorrow here. We've got a quick turnaround. Short term memory and put in a better effort tomorrow.

On the five-day layoff

It's tough to make excuses. No matter what, if we play a back-to-back or three-in-three or have five days off, you have to show up and play every night. We got outworked, I think. That can't happen. That's always in our control, how hard we work. Nobody is going to do it for us. We have to buy in as a group and help each other as a group. Create our own energy. We even had some of America's Finest Fans who made the trek from San Diego. First time playing in front of them and we let them down. We've got to have a big response tomorrow.

On responding tomorrow

We'll have a chat here and watch some video, but it goes back to the work. We've got to worry about ourselves, not who we're playing against. Tonight, we beat ourselves. They're a good team, don't want to not give them credit, but I know how we can play.

Head Coach Kevin Dineen

On the game

You were kind saying we kind of stumbled because we definitely did. We had talked about different strategic things that we felt we could take advantage of and we saw it happen right to us. They pushed hard after that first goal and our response wasn't very good. We got ourselves behind the eight ball in the first period and had a decent couple of road periods to finish up the game, but it was too little, too late.

On effort level

This isn't an overly difficult game. There's one puck out there and whoever wants to compete for it more and outwork is going to end up with it and there was too many times we ended up on the wrong side of that.

On what has changed since 6-0-0 start to the season

We play in a good league. I think our lineup has had some transition in it and we have lots of excuses built in, but for me, every chance you get to step on the ice, you get the opportunity to go preform. We're not playing at a high enough level - our record indicates that and the way we feel about ourselves does too so we got less than 24 hours and we're going to get back at it tomorrow.

On what needs to change for tomorrow's rematch against Tucson

Consistency throughout the game from the opening faceoff to the last faceoff of a period and starting the same way. It's understanding that if we don't play a certain way, what happened to us tonight will continue to happen to us. We need some fundamental changes in our thought process and the way we play.

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American Hockey League Stories from March 21, 2021


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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