Reign finish regular season with loss against Canucks
With some key players out for rest in the final game of the regular season, the Ontario Reign take a 2-0 shutout loss to the Abbotsford Canucks Saturday night at Toyota Arena. Canucks goalie Jiří Patera finished with 25 saves. The Reign have a bye for round one of the AHL Calder Cup Playoffs and will compete in the division semifinals.
Playoff information is TBD.
ONTARIO, CA. -- In the final game of the regular season the Ontario Reign were shut out 2-0 by the Abbotsford Canucks Saturday night at Toyota Arena. With playoffs around the corner, a few key players were not on the ice tonight.
And it made more of a difference than perhaps otherwise expected. Defensemen Angus Booth and Kirill Kirsanov, along with forward Kenny Connors were resting tonight, and the Reign looked like a completely different team without them. Abbotsford is in ninth place in the AHL Pacific Division at 27-37-4-3 and 61 points, hence why the Pacific Division champions getting shut out by a team that is objectively worse came as a surprise.
But in an impartially meaningless game, resting a few starters made the most sense. The Canucks dominated from start to finish with goalie Jiří Patera saving 25 shots in his first shutout this season. And evidently with 25 shots on goal it’s not like the Reign didn’t have chances, they had many.