The Ontario Reign bench celebrates one of the three goals they scored against the San Jose Barracuda at Tech CU Arena on Friday NOV 24, 2023. (San Jose Barracuda)

by Marko Ukalovic

SAN JOSE — The Ontario Reign might want to change their name to the blanks or zeroes.

The Reign took down the San Jose Barracuda in a 3-0 shutout victory on Friday evening at Tech CU Arena.

San Jose has lost three of its past five games. Ontario has won three games in a row, with three consecutive shutouts, and have points in seven straight games.

Ontario (10-4-1-1) drew first blood on the power play past the halfway mark of the first period. Alex Turcotte made touch pass back to Akil Thomas up near the point. Thomas sent a rink wide pass over to Samuel Fagemo who buried a one-timer past ‘Cuda goalie Eetu Makiniemi for his sixth goal of the season at the 11:50 mark.

San Jose (4-7-4-0) were busy on the penalty kill during the opening frame as they weren’t able to establish their forecheck with only generating four shots on goal.

The Barracuda dominated the second period as they outshot the Reign 15-8. Despite having Ontario on their heels for the majority of the period, San Jose had nothing to show for it on the scoreboard as Reign goalie David Rittich kept the puck from going in during the middle frame.

“We knew they were a stingy team defensively,” said ‘Cuda head coach John McCarthy regarding his team being shutout. “We knew were going to have to work for our (scoring) chances. I think we did have some chances on par with what that team gives up.”

Ontario doubled its lead 24 seconds into the third period. A shot from the right side by Brandt Clarke was redirected by Turcotte for his fourth goal of the season. Taylor Ward picked up the secondary assist.

San Jose was behind the eight ball when Ontario had a full two-minute 5-on-3 power play advantage when Thomas Bordeleau and Jacob Peterson both went off for high sticking at the 6:59 mark. However, Makiniemi and the penalty kill kept the deficit from growing any larger.

“Our (penalty) kill has been good the last stretch here. Everybody bought in. I thought we had some big blocks on that (5-on-3), kinda got the bench into it,” McCarthy said.

TJ Tynan, who leads the AHL in assists with 15, scored an empty netter with 1:32 remaining in the game for his second goal of the season to ice the game for Ontario.

Rittich (6-3-2) stopped all 32 shots he faced to earn his third shutout of the season. Makiniemi (0-2-0) made 20 saves on 22 shots in the losing effort after making his first since being called up from Wichita.

GAME NOTES: San Jose finished 0-for-2 on the power play. Ontario was 1-for-5.

Ontario has outscored their last three opponents 13-0.

The Three Stars of the Game: 1) Turcotte 2) Rittich 3) Fagemo.

UP NEXT: San Jose and Ontario conclude their two-games series on Saturday 11/25 at 2:00pm at Tech CU Arena.