Gulls Look to Wrangle Win from Calgary
Mar 22, 2026By Ashley Rubin/SanDiegoGulls.com
The San Diego Gulls are ready to close out their season series with the Calgary Wranglers tonight at Pechanga Arena San Diego (5 p.m. PDT; TV: AHLTV on FloHockey; Radio: Gulls Audio Network).
"We’ve got a Calgary team that's very dangerous offensively," head coach Matt McIlvane said. "I think that our game is going to be more focused on ourselves and continuing to build our game, but we know where you got a big challenge ahead of us."
San Diego has gone 1-2-0-0 against Calgary this season and have the chance to tie the series up tonight. The Wranglers take the ninth-place spot in the Pacific Division and have a slim chance of making the playoffs as they only have nine games remaining after tonight.
The Gulls have found more success recently, going 4-5-1-0 in their past 10 contests. The team has 68 points and is coming off an 7-4 victory against the Bakersfield Condors on Friday night.
Friday saw a lot of offensive production and successful defense. San Diego put up four goals in the first period for the first time this season with Judd Caulfield, Stian Solberg, Matthew Phillips, and Justin Bailey finding the back of the net. Tristan Luneau kept the scoring going in the second while Nikita Nesterenko and Cal Burke added two more in the third. Tomas Suchanek protected the crease and earned his third consecutive victory, saving 15-of-19 shots. The team successfully killed off four penalties and capitalized on their one of their two power plays.
"I think our kill has been pretty good," Tyson Hinds said. "We put a lot of puck pressure on them and they had to rim a lot of pucks. I think our face offs tonight were pretty good too. So, I think we did a good job putting pressure and limiting their time with the puck. I think we're just going to keep going that direction."
Locking down two more points was essential for San Diego as they fight to stay in their playoff position. The team aims to take two more tonight and keep climbing the rankings. The Gulls have proved how capable they are as a team and hope to make a deep run in what would be their first playoff appearance since 2022.
Following tonight’s contest, the Gulls will head to Abbotsford for a back-to-back series with the Canucks at Rogers Forum starting Saturday, Mar. 28 (7 p.m. PDT).