May 2, 2022
By AJ Manderichio/SanDiegoGulls.com
Great moments are born from great opportunity.
The words of legendary hockey coach Herb Brooks rang through THE RINKS – Poway ICE on a Monday morning as the San Diego Gulls continued their preparations for their First Round series of the 2022 Calder Cup Playoffs against the rival Ontario Reign.
“Yeah, I think this is a good time for us,” Gulls forward Hunter Drew said following the skate. “Like you said, everyone is coming back and everyone is starting to get healthy at the right time. I think, well not just me, we all think we can beat Ontario and we’re not scared to play them or worried about who they have. We have a good lineup and a good crew here that can go deep here.”
The Gulls enter the playoffs as the Pacific Division’s seventh – and final – playoff team. The team earned its spot through a strong second-half push, breaking away from the Tucson Roadrunners and San Jose Barracuda to reach the postseason for the fifth time in the team’s seven-year history. Removing the canceled COVID-19 season, San Diego made the playoffs in five of six seasons.
Their reward – a meeting with the division’s second-ranked team, an Ontario squad that finished the regular season with 41 wins.
“Well, there’s no secret that they’re a good team, obviously,” Gulls head coach Joel Bouchard said. “The thing with the AHL, the line-up will change so much that you face them through the season you look at some clips that the player they used to have or they didn’t have and now they have back from the NHL and same thing with us. So, it’s just a matter of combination of preparing yourself to do what you have to do and making sure you’re aware of a good team on the other bench and that you have to be task-oriented on what they do because they’re good.”
The Reign held the upper hand in the 12-game regular-season series, winning nine meetings. This includes a perfect 6-0-0-0 record…
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