Ontario Reign: Three takeaways from 2-0 loss against Coachella

Goal Breakdown

First period:

CV: PP Devin Shore (3), ASST: Kole Lind (11), Ryker Evans (6)

Second period:

CV: Shane Wright (8), ASST: None

Third period: 

None

Stats

Goals:

CV: 2

ONT: 0

Shots:

CV: 21

ONT: 28

Power plays: 

CV: 1/3

ONT: 0/4

Here are the three takeaways from Friday’s 2-0 defeat:

Tobias Bjornfot returns

Tobias Bjornfot missed the last three games after being out with an injury. In a game against Coachella Valley, back on November 21st, Bjornfot took a hit from behind into the boards from Firebirds forward Jacob Melanson. Bjornfot had to be taken off the ice by a stretcher and taken to a nearby hospital for testing. As for Melanson, he received a major penalty for boarding and a game misconduct.

Last night was Bjornfot’s first game back since the incident. When asked about being back in the lineup after the game, Bjornfot was grateful to be back after an incident he deemed scary. “It was scary. I was scared a lot, too. I got good help from the people in Coachella and their staff there. It’s scary but good to be back,” Bjornfot said in his postgame. For the game, Bjornfot recorded one shot on goal and played on the second defensive pairing with Tyler Inamoto.

Samuel Helenius would drop the gloves with Melanson 2:27 into the contest as a retaliation factor from the hit on Bjornfot in the previous meeting.

Too much on the outside

If there was one thing that was frustrating last night was where the shots were coming from by the Ontario Reign skaters. While they had 28 shots on goal, there weren’t many high-danger chances on goal against Firebirds netminder Chris Driedger. Head coach Marco Sturm pointed out in his postgame that he didn’t like the scoring chances in all situations and referred to his team wanting to make the perfect play and ended up making it an easy game for the Firebirds in the defensive end.

In the previous game against Coachella Valley, the Reign got to the middle of the ice and created high-danger chances. Last night, the Firebirds tightened those gaps to keep everything to the outside, taking away the middle of the ice. It wasn’t a bad game for the Reign, but the shot locations could be better. Ontario will have a chance to fix that tonight.

David Rittich bounces back

After getting pulled in the first period on Tuesday after allowing three goals on six shots, David Rittich was tabbed as the starting goalie. It’s no surprise that Sturm would tab the veteran goalie as the starter, as he has shown a willingness to go back to a veteran netminder after a rough game in the past.

In the loss, Rittich made 19 saves on 21 shots and, as Sturm alluded to, gave them a chance to win. “He kept us in the game for a long time…unfortunately, we left two points behind,” Sturm said after the loss. You can’t pin a loss on the goalie, who allowed only two goals when the team got shutout. Rittich made some big saves in the second to keep the Reign within one, but Driedger was just two shots better.

Notes:

*The Reign were shutout for the first time this season.

*Shane Wright has four points in his last three games for the Firebirds.

*Samuel Helenius earned his third fighting major on the season.

*Devin Shore’s power-play goal in the first was the first goal the Reign allowed against the Firebirds all season.

* The winner of all three games in the season series has won via the shutout.

*Chris Driedger earned his second shutout of the season for the Firebirds.

UP NEXT: These two teams are back at it again tonight in Coachella Valley to close out the weekend series. The game starts at 6 PM and can be seen on AHLTV.