San Jose Barracuda vs Ontario Reign on Sunday December 21st at Toyota Arena Ontario (via flickr/ontarioreign)

By Madison Montez

The San Jose Barracuda showed off their special teams once again to start the game that helped lead for a 6-3 win against the Ontario Reign on Sunday. After Ontario’s Andre Lee was given a two minute roughing penalty and a game misconduct, Jimmy Huntington extended his point streak to two games.

As a result of San Jose not being able to clear the puck out of their zone, Ontario tied the game at one a piece. Jared Wright with his sixth goal of the season. Picking up a loose puck, Halttunen beat Sholl on his glove side to give San Jose their lead back. 30 seconds later, Shane Bowers scored his first goal in a Barracuda sweater to extend their lead to 3-1.

Staying aggressive in the second period, Filip Bystedt extended San Jose’s lead to 4-1. Ontario didn’t give up without a fight. Koehn Ziemmer scored his second of the season to cut into San Jose’s two goal lead. With two minutes left, Patrick Giles scored an empty net goal to extend San Jose’s lead. To seal the win, Pavol Regenda scored an empty net goal to improve to a 6-3 lead.

With the score being as close as it was, the shots were pretty close also. After the first period, Ontario outshot San Jose by one shot, 11-10. After the second period, Ontario outshot San Jose again, this time ten to eight. With four minutes left in the game, Jack Hughes scored to make it a one goal game.

Today’s game was very chippy which means there were a good amount of penalties taken. San Jose went to the box five times while Ontario went to the box four times. San Jose was able to capitalize on one of their three chances while Ontario didn’t capitalize on either of their two chances.

Gabriel Carriere got the start for San Jose, and making his AHL debut in today afternoon’s game, Mattias Sholl got the start for Ontario. Carriere, who recorded the win made 23 saves on 25 shots, and now has a record of 7-6-2-1. Sholl, who recorded the loss, and made 17 saves on 21 shots now has a AHL record of 0-1.

THREE STARS OF THE GAME:

1. Jimmy Huntington
2. Koehn Ziemmer
3. Jared Wright

The Barracuda will be back in action returning home at Tech CU on Sat December 27th where they will host this same Ontario Reign team.