The Ontario Reign (9-6-1-0) defeated the Bakersfield Condors (7-6-3-0) Friday night by a final score of 3-2 in front of 8,562 fans at Toyota Arena. The Reign and Condors will meet Saturday night for a 7 p.m. (PST) at Dignity Health Arena in Bakersfield.
The Reign led 2-0 after the first period and 3-0 after two periods as both goals for Bakersfield came with less than three minutes to play in the contest. Kenny Connors notched a Gordie Howe Hat-Trick while Jared Wright scored a goal and picked up a fighting major. Koehn Ziemmer joined the party with a fight as well while Taylor Ward scored the Reign’s first goal of the night and Andre Lee finished with two assists.
Ontario led 2-0 after the first period outshooting Bakersfield 9-4. Taylor Ward (8th) on the board from Akil Thomas and Martin Chromiak at 6:23 making it 1-0 sending a shot from below the right circle through the five-hole of Ingram. Kenny Connors (4th) stretched the lead to 2-0 from Andre Lee at 11:18. Kyle Burroughs sent the puck to the net from the right point. With a lot of traffic in front of the crease Lee muscled it free to Connors who cashed in on the rebound. Ontario went 0-for-3 on the power-play and 1-for-1 on the penalty kill.
The Reign led 3-0 after 40 minutes of play as Jared Wright (4th) scored the lone goal in the frame from Lee and Connors at 11:45. The play started back in the defensive zone when Connors worked the puck free on the left-wing wall feeding Lee who marched out through center ice. Lee sprung Wright on a breakaway where he sent a shot over the glove of Ingram. Ontario went 0-for-2 on the power-play in the period while they were 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.
Things got interesting in the third period when Viljami Marjala scored with 2:30 left in the game and then Quinn Huston tallied a six-on-four extra attacker goal 52 seconds later making it a one-goal game. The Reign were able to close out the 3-2 victory as the Condors held the edge in shots 10-8 in the final frame. Ontario went 0-for-2 on the power-play in the final 20 minutes while Bakersfield converted on their lone power-play.
Pheonix Copley made 15 saves on 17 shots in the win while Connor Ingram suffered the loss making 21 stops on 24 shots.
Postgame thoughts from Andrew Lord, Kenny Connors, and Jared Wright.
Lord
On tonight’s win
Yeah, it was good. We were at the races. We were executing. Thought we played the right way. We didn’t give them a lot. They’re obviously a very talented, highly offensive team, and I thought we shut them down for the most part, which was good. And then rest of the game was good enough and good to get two points.
On the Lee Connors Wright line
They were really good earlier in the year for us. We broke them up probably five or six games ago. There was an opportunity to go back to it. I thought they were a driver for us in a lot of ways. Obviously, Connors with a Gordie Howe, Wright with one and the fight, and Andre Lee was all over the ice. So really good. A really good identity line for us, 200 feet, all three of them as hockey players. And then I thought they played really well overall, and definitely gave us some good minutes.
Wright
On his goal
Yeah, it started with a great play by Kenny on the wall. And then, Lee making an excellent chip to the middle there. And I was just lucky that I had speed and lucky that it went in the net. It was really nice to get that one.
On seeing Connors drop the gloves first
I mean, anytime you see your teammates, especially a roommate and a friend like that, drop the gloves, I wanted to do the same thing. And I think anyone would stick up for their teammates. He definitely got everyone fired up when he dropped the gloves.
Connors
On his first time dropping the gloves
No experience, but the Kings and Clarkie do a really good job of getting us prepared. This week, we were working on some stuff, you know, you don’t want to go into it unprepared. So that helped a lot. I felt comfortable getting to home base. I think the Kings and especially Clarkie, and even Doty helped me a little bit with it, just kind of getting comfortable and feeling confident if it ever comes up.
On his line getting to the dirty areas and pucks to the net
Yeah, I think especially for our line, that’s huge. That’s part of our identity, just playing hard, making sure that we get pucks to the net, playing fast. Lee made a great play on the entry there, pulling up, getting it to Burroughs, but yeah, Lee and Wright make it easy to play with, and getting pucks to the net is part of what we do.