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Reign Recap: Notes, Video, Quotes from Wrobo

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Sometimes, things that look the same are actually quite different. Friday night in Las Vegas, the Kings lost 5-2 to the Golden Knights. A few miles down the road on Saturday night, the Henderson Silver Knights topped the Ontario Reign by the same 5-2 score. These were very different games.

At least one thing was the similar in both games, though.

Inexperience.

LA coach Todd McLellan had three players on his blueline, half the defensive group, with less than 50 games combined of NHL experience.

Ontario Coach John Wroblewski had seven forwards playing in their first AHL game. Again, more that half the group.

For the Reign, there was a last minute add to the lineup when Quinton Byfield was deemed good to go. He missed most of the team’s preseason and only recently started skating again earlier in the week. However, after the team’s morning skate, everybody felt comfortable enough to put him into the lineup.

As we posted here, Ontario’s lineup for the game was:

Tyler Madden – Rasmus Kupari – Arthur Kaliyev
Mikey Eyssimont – Alex Turcotte – Akil Thomas
Blaine Byron – Quinton Byfield – Sammy Fagemo
Boko Imama – Brett Sutter – Aidan Dudas

Daniel Brickley – Sean Durzi
Jacob Moverare – Markus Phillips
Cameron Gaunce – Jack Sadek

Matt Villalta

Notes and Quotes From The Game

Turcotte took the opening faceoff. However, the Silver Knights will likely remember it more as Patrick Brown took the faceoff, as it was the moment that officially began their first game in team history.

How about this – when was the last time a 38 and a 39 lined up for the opening draw?

Wroblewski postgame – We thought Brickley was really good tonight. His d-zone play was quiet and he had multiple scoring chances from the blueline. We’re looking for him to choke out a few more plays in the neutral zone and dominate his pinching percentage. All in all, he’s given us some real positives to work with.

https://twitter.com/mayorNHL/status/1358265524182867970

Wroblewski postgame – Kupari’s goal is exactly what we’re looking to be a staple of his game. Earlier in that shift, he had an opportunity to have a more direct drive to the net and he didn’t, and took a big hit as a result. Good on him to learn from it.

Wroblewski – That was a ten-bell chance. Eyssimont found him off that weak post and in practice Akil finds the back of the net pretty much every time with that shot. Credit to the the goldtender, Thompson, I thought he was outstanding. A couple bounces, a couple breakaways we missed, things like that and we’re talking about a different result.

Wroblewski postgame on Turcotte and Byfield playing their first games after being out with injuries – I really liked those two. They created chances and had a presence, an aura about them. Tonight was an excellent opportunity for them to go against a continuously heavy team and a base point for their journey on how to play against men.

Update – Wroblewski hosted an early morning zoom on Sunday, where he shared these additional comments:

On Byfield and Turcotte after he had a chance to rewatching the game on video

I thought they both showed flashes of brilliance. For me, they were a little quiet at times, offensively. Also, just their positioning details and a few things, few nuances – a little bit harder on the puck, a few more stops and starts, a lot of the things that come without playing, they showed last night. But let’s bank on the flashes of brilliance and the scoring chances that they that they produced. We’ll work on those other items and try to clean those up.

On the decision to keep Kupari on the top line to start the season

We were looking for some continuity. I believe we had four guys up front that are basically playing their first games. … so we wanted to just get as much continuity as possible. While I am interested in seeing Kaliyev and Madden with with different players, we really do like that line. Of course, they scored again last night. We just have to get those guys to produce on the power play and then we’re talking about a different game.

On Marcus Phillips seemingly having a rough game

It’s interesting, his good was good, and then there were a couple glaring mistakes that led to goals. I would say that, overall, Philly’s game was solid. There were just a couple couple plays, and I know that’s ultimately what a defenseman is defined on, where there were some items for him to build on. That’s definitely our message for today. When your watching on a screen, I’m not sure if you can tell the difference of pace from the preseason games, but I’ll tell you at ice level, on the bench, it was a significant upgrade from what we’ve seen in the preseason. Just the continuity that that a regular season lineup kind of throws at you, I think a lot of guys may have underestimated or just not known what was going to come at them there. So we’re going to give Philly some time here to to really, I think, reflect on what he did well and then hopefully we just tighten up a couple the the mistakes.

On Akil Thomas moving to wing after playing center all preseason

I wouldn’t say [that’s where he will] settle in. I think right now, to get him the minutes that I think that he deserves to play — and last night, I would say that he was probably our most effective forward, scoring chance-wise. He just seemed to be around the puck, it was finding him. And for a guy who doesn’t play the wing normally, his wall play is very, very good. He understands the position. We need him to engage a little bit more when he is low in coverage. That’s something we’ll address with him, as well. That’s kind of a theme with all of our young players, is to engage a little bit more in there in the trenches. Back to Akil, I thought he was very good yesterday. For him to for a pathway as a player, to have as many avenues as possible is a very good thing. Him shifting out to the wing and understanding the nuances of that position can only help him.

On some of things he’s looking for to define success

I think for us, it’s trying to set simple goals. Like to start off the game, for instance, we really wanted each line to funnel properly into our defensive end and hit their proper spots. As the game went on, we felt like we lost control of our funnels and gave up some free-play defensive zone action, including a goal. To me, that was discerning because that was the focus of the early going, to be really clean and tight with our funnels, not allow anything to happen and free-play, unnecessarily. We can see there was free-play way too often. In the micro, early on, we had some losses in that department. That was frustrating, but we stayed positive on the bench and tried to help guys out, as much as we possibly could. Then, into the third period, I thought we really controlled the play. With the power plays not converting, we did a lot of things to draw those those power plays. They weren’t gifted from the referees, we had to earn those. We earned three of them and we got to our offensive zone scheme. It really started to show through and that was a focus going into the third period. We weren’t great in our end, we have to fix that. That’s what I’ve been doing from midnight last night and sporadically until now. We need to get each line going that way and get each other on the same page, with what we need to do in the defensive zone. We did do a very good job of letting our offensive zone systems and ideals shine through in the third. Hopefully, that’s something we can get to a little bit more often, with fixing that first part.

On the lack of success on the power play

We were 0-for-5, if I’m not mistaken. We had two in the first period and three in the third. What I liked, I thought that some of our entries were extremely clean. We had one in the first period, I think it was the first or second power play, Kupari and Madden teamed up for an entry. Eventually, we won a couple battles and made some really nice plays. Turcotte from the goal line found Durzi for a five-star scoring chance, right in the slot. That was a great picture, should go on a highlight package for us to be able to show going forward, as to what what the power play should look like. Obviously, you want to get the puck to Kaliyev on the power play and we failed to do that. He only had the one big shot, of course it rings off the post and we got an empty net. We have to get the puck to Arty a lot more. When Arty gets it under duress, he has to do a little bit better job with it. So there’s some things to build on. I don’t want to say that having three power plays in a row is a problem, but I think those guys petered out a little bit on those on those PPs in the third. We have to continue to build their engines, so that doesn’t happen. A little more killer instinct to get that game tied in that spot. Our face-offs on the power play have to improve. I thought we got cleared on a few times, especially that first one. I believe we got cleared on all three times on the power play. All in all, again, it’s a feeling out process. Those units have never played together. We did practice a little bit, but we added some pieces in. It feels miserable to wake up with a loss, but at the same time, we get to go play hockey again and we get to go practice today. We’ll re-rack and I think we have a good message for the boys. We’ll see how they respond tomorrow.

Next up, the Reign and Silver Knights meet again on Monday. We expect JF Berube to be in goal for Ontario and we’ll have to see if Hults slides in on D. There is also the possibility of Toby Bjornfot and/or Austin Strand rejoining the team, as well.

Until then, be sure to check out Wroblewski’s appearance on Kings Of The Podcast this week (liked below). We did a deep dive on his roster and took a look at what to expect from the Ontario Reign this season.



RELATED CONTENT:

Kings Of The Podcast: S2, E11 – Ontario Reign Season Preview with John Wroblewski

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Lead photo courtesy of Henderson Silver Knights