Gulls Take First of Three vs. Canucks 4-3
Jan 20, 2024By Morgan Korovec/SanDiegoGulls.com 
The San Diego Gulls couldn’t be cooled Saturday night as they took down the Abbotsford Canucks at Abbotsford Centre in a hard-fought 4-3 victory.
The victory gives San Diego points in four straight contests (3-0-1-0) and improves its record to 12-16-6-0.
The Gulls set the tone early in their first of three battles with the Canucks in the next four days. At 10:59 in the opening frame, San Diego seized the lead as Olen Zellweger received the puck and shot it from a sharp angle that ultimately landed in the back of the net off a deflection, his seventh goal of the season.
"I think that was the goal, surprise them with our speed and our work ethic," Zellweger said. "I think that was definitely a factor early on and we’re definitely going to look to bring that again tomorrow."
On a five-on-three power play, Glenn Gawdin carried the puck to the right-wing faceoff dot and banged it in the net past Nikita Tolopilo at 16:37 to extend San Diego’s lead to two, his 11th goal of the season.
San Diego kept the opponent off the board until 2:51 in the middle frame, when Abbotsford cut the Gulls’ lead in half as Josh Passolt netted his first goal of the season.
Ben King joined in on the fun as he threw his ninth goal of the season into the net at 5:33 in the second, restoring San Diego’s two-goal lead.
With under two minutes left in the second, Abbotsford’s John Stevens tucked the puck between the legs of Suchanek to score the Canucks’ second goal of the night.
To kick off the action in the final frame, Mark Friedman pulled the score even after he scored on a breakout play for the Canucks.
That tie wouldn’t last for long as Zellweger struck again, firing his second goal of the evening with just over five minutes left in regulation for his first career multi-goal game. Zellweger picked up a season-tying three points, as he also added an assist in addition to his pair of goals (2-1=3).
Chase De Leo tallied an assist, his 93rd in a Gulls uniform, moving him into a tie with Corey Tropp for second-most in Gulls AHL history. He sits two assists away from Sam Carrick’s franchise-record 95 assists as a Gull.
Nick Wolff, Nikita Nesterenko, Brayden Tracey, and Nathan Gaucher also tallied assists on the night.
Tomas Suchanek was terrific in-net, stopping 24-of-27 shots to improve to 7-2-1 on the season.
"We know what their threats are," head coach Matt McIlvane said of Abbotsford. "Obviously, they showed how good they are around our net and how fast they can transition. Same thing happens for them in the neutral zone. They're very quick in their transition. And so for us, we need to be a bit smarter in some certain areas, and I think we can suffocate them a little bit more."
The Gulls will be back on the ice in another battle with the Canucks tomorrow for the second of back-to-back games this weekend at Abbotsford Centre (4 p.m. PST).