Gulls Face Division-Leading Eagles in Back-to-Back Showdown
Jan 9, 2026
By Ashley Rubin/SanDiegoGulls.com
The San Diego Gulls will take on the Pacific Division leading Colorado Eagles tonight in game one of a back-to-back weekend series at Blue Arena (6:05 p.m. PST; TV: AHLTV on FloHockey; Radio: Gulls Audio Network).
"I think it's really exciting," Matthew Phillips said. "I think it's a great challenge for us. It's the top team in the division. It's probably the most fun place in the American League to go play on the road, and it's a test for us, and it's going to be two really fun games."
Colorado is currently tied with the Ontario Reign at the top of the division with a 21-7-1-1 record. They have picked up 44 points in 30 games played, three less than the Reign. The Eagles go into tonight coming off a loss to the Henderson Silver Knights. The teams played a back-to-back series last weekend with each taking one win.
San Diego is in a tight race to climb up the Pacific Division leaderboard. The Gulls, Silver Knights, and Coachella Valley Firebirds are tied between sixth and eighth place with 36 points each. The Gulls were able to pick up an extra point to keep them in this tie on Wednesday when they fell to the San Jose Barracuda in a shootout.
"It's huge," Phillips said. "I mean, obviously a disappointing result tonight. The message was to just kind of regroup and put that behind us. And we battled really hard to push it to overtime and had a couple chances to win the game still, but we'll take the point."
The game was tight as a 1-1 score was held up until the final frame with the first Gulls goal being scored by Yegor Sidorov. San Jose was able to take a lead late in the third but, it was answered by Phillips as he tied the game back up with 55 seconds remaining. A scoreless overtime sent the team to their second shootout of the season. Justin Bailey and Sam Colangelo were able to net shootout goals, but it was not enough to take the win.
San Diego and Colorado will get right back at it tomorrow night as they finish out this series at Blue Arena (6:05 p.m. PST).