SAN DIEGO – The San Diego Gulls (11-11-1-0; 23 pts.) were defeated 3-1 by the Stockton Heat (16-6-1-1; 34 pts.) in front of 9,440 fans at Valley View Casino Center on Teddy Bear Toss Night. Tonight’s game marked the second annual Teddy Bear Toss as 16,520 bears were tossed onto the ice during the second stoppage of the third period, surpassing the 15,174 bears from last season.
Stockton Heat
Stockton goaltender Jon Gillies (9-3-2-0) led the way for the Heat making a career-high 48 saves. The Concord, N.H. native turned away 92 of the 96 shots he faced this weekend (.958 save percentage) and improved to 3-0-0-0 against the Gulls this season.
“We didn’t have any finish and that’s the bottom line,” said head coach Dallas Eakins. “Their goalie played an excellent game, but we’re going to have to start finding a way to win games.”
The Heat struck first at 14:43 of the opening frame on the power play when Morgan Klimchuk skated between the circles and beat San Diego goaltender Kevin Boyle blocker side. Klimchuk leads Stockton with nine goals and has tallied 6-3=9 points in seven games against San Diego this season.
With only 30 seconds left in the first period, a failed San Diego clearing attempt led to Austin Carroll’s (1-0=1) drive finding a way through Boyle’s five-hole to extend Stockton’s lead to 2-0.
A scoreless second period saw the Gulls generate plenty of chances, but the home club could not solve Stockton goaltender Jon Gillies. The 22-year-old made his best stop of the night when he denied Nick Sorensen on a breakaway opportunity with a spectacular glove save.
At 16:42 of the middle stanza, Emile Poirier found Hunter Shinkaruk from behind the net and Shinkaruk’s wrist shot beat Boyle for his seventh goal of the season as the Heat took a 3-0 lead into third period.
“We keep playing catch up here and that’s tough,” said defenseman Jeff Schultz. “It could have been a different story tonight if we had cashed in on our chances earlier in the game.”
Gillies continued to frustrate the Gulls as he made impressive saves off Antoine Laganiere and Chris Wagner early in the third period. San Diego posted a season-high 25 shots in the final frame and finally broke through at the 19:46 mark when Keaton Thompson scored his first AHL goal.
San Diego rookie goaltender Kevin Boyle (0-2-1-0) stopped 22-of-25 shots and picked up his third loss in his first start at Valley View Casino Center this season.
“We have a really great crowd here and I felt the energy tonight,” Boyle said. “I thought we played really well, we just couldn’t get one by [Gillies].”
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