The Ontario Reign saw their goaltending picture change quickly once again as 2026 approached.

What had been old once again became new for the Reign, who had been dealing with the losses of Pheonix Copley and top prospect Erik Portillo for significant portions of this season’s first half.

The Los Angeles Kings had recalled Copley, who turns 34 this Sunday, on Dec. 16. He ended up staying with the Kings for two weeks before returning to Ontario on Dec. 30.

Ontario’s goaltending picture had already been through considerable instability before the season had started. When the Kings attempted to send Copley to the Reign in training camp, the Tampa Bay Lightning had claimed him on waivers Oct. 2, a little more than a week before the AHL season started. Los Angeles got him back in a trade Oct. 15 and then sent him to Ontario on Oct. 23. A brief recall followed in November before his December promotion.

Amid Copley’s back-and-forth and here-and-there stood Portillo, a 24-year-old the Kings really could use as a future part of their goaltending. Darcy Kuemper and Anton Forsberg are both well past 30 years old and set to become unrestricted free agents after next season.

Portillo had already been through some rocky times in the Los Angeles organization since being acquired from the Buffalo Sabres in a March 2023 deal. He had shown considerable promise in three strong seasons at the University of Michigan before turning pro shortly after the trade. His 2023-24 rookie season saw him play 39 games and go 24-11-3 | 2.50 | .918 to boost optimism further. But he struggled last season, and the entire campaign came to a halt after a Feb. 17 game at Calgary. 

He went on to miss the rest of the season and the Calder Cup Playoffs with what was later revealed to be a back injury. But he came back healthy, went to Ontario, and assembled a strong first month of his season. As he told LA Kings Insider, that pain had been building even before that night in Calgary, and his sagging numbers certainly had underlined that point.

So the Kings, Reign, and Portillo certainly had to cringe when he departed a game Nov. 12 after playing just 2:51. That night happened to be in the same building, Scotiabank Saddledome, where his 2024-25 campaign had come to a halt nearly nine months earlier.

Next came nearly two months of recovery before Portillo could return to game action.

“This time we were pretty familiar with how to treat it, so it made it a little easier,” Portillo told the Reign website. “We [were] on top of it right away. It was a little less as well.

“We’ve just been battling every single day to get back.”

That time finally did come Jan. 4, and he turned in a 19-save shutout against the visiting Iowa Wild. Moreover, he came back to the line-up with the Reign in a stretch of four games in six nights. They, and Copley, needed that relief. Copley had taken on much of Portillo’s workload both last season and this campaign. The veteran had made 21 appearances in the final two months of the 2024-25 regular season, a demanding level of work, to help the Reign to qualify for the Calder Cup Playoffs.

“It was awesome,” Ontario head coach Andrew Lord told the team website after that performance shutting out the Wild. “You could feel it on the bench. The guys were really pulling for him late to get [the shutout] over the line. [Portillo] is one of the best competitors I’ve coached.”

His next start came this past Friday night in a 5-4 shootout win against the Henderson Silver Knights at Toyota Arena. With Copley back from Los Angeles and Portillo healthy again, the Reign could send Isaiah Saville and Mattias Sholl back to their ECHL affiliate, the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, and get that team stronger in net as well.

The 22-11-1-1 Reign have themselves in a good place, just one point behind the division-leading Colorado Eagles. Saville had come in and provided excellent goaltending, something that can give the organization that much more confidence should they need him again.

But next up is a showdown with the Eagles for a pair of games in Colorado on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. A pair of weekend games in Texas will follow as well. They will not have much room for any sort of extended letdown, however. Just 10 points separate first-place Colorado from the ninth-place Tucson Roadrunners. Both Tucson and the third-place Bakersfield Condors are taking 6-0-1-0 streaks into this week’s schedule.

2026 Ontario Reign vs Colorado Eagles

But Lord has confidence in his now-healthy goaltender.

“He’s just all-in,” Lord said.

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