Gulls Take Two Points from IceHogs
Feb 21, 2026
By Ashley Rubin/SanDiegoGulls.com
The San Diego Gulls took a comeback win over the Rockford IceHogs tonight at BMO Center, 5-4.
There was a complete team effort put up by San Diego tonight as they took home their sixth all-time win over Rockford. The Gulls responded to each of Rockford’s goals and held a lead only in the third period, which ensured their win.
Sasha Pastujov extended his recent success tonight, scoring his first multi-goal and triple-point game of the season. The winger now holds a five-game point streak with 3-5=8 points picked up. He netted his first of the night early in the first, putting a slap shot through on the powerplay. His second was found in the third when he put another puck through also on a powerplay. His assist was found just over two minutes later, extending his team-leading point count to 37.
The powerplay was perfect tonight for the Gulls as they went 3-for-3 on the man advantage. Ryan Carpenter found the other powerplay goal, getting a shot through right in front of the net. Carpenter also picked up an assist on Pastujov’s goal, marking both a goal and an assist in his past two games.
"I think just staying with it," Pastujov said. "Last game we had plenty of chances to take over the game with the 5-on-3 and the 4-on-3 and we didn’t get the result. We liked our process, we thought we had a lot of chances last game so that was the message today: stay with it and we’ll break through. 3-for-3 is awesome, it’s huge. Especially in that first when we were a little slow, we found a way to get on the board and give the team a little bit of juice and we had a good plan coming in. I’m just glad we could execute."
Defenseman Stian Solberg found his first AHL career multi-goal game. Solberg tied the game back up in the second when he found the back of the net from behind the goal line, bouncing the puck in off Rockford’s goalie’s pads. He later gave San Diego their first lead of the night in the third, netting what was ultimately the game-winning-goal. The 20-year-old has logged 8-6=14 points this season.
Matthew Phillips picked up his 200th career AHL assist on Carpenter’s goal. Two periods later, Phillips made it 201 career assists. The forward has appeared in 387 AHL games since the 2016-17 season, logging a total of 334 points. He has found 2-3=5 points in his past five games and 35 total with the Gulls this season.
Tristan Luneau was the fourth San Diego player to log a multi-point night. The defenseman tallied assists on both of Pastujov’s goals, making tonight his third game of the season with two assists. Luneau totals 4-14=18 points this season, ranking second amongst all Gulls defenders.
The crease was once again protected by Calle Clang who saved 23-of-27 shots. The netminder made an essential save with eight seconds remaining in the third period to ensure San Diego’s victory.
The Gulls and IceHogs will get right back at it tomorrow as they close this series out at BMO Center (2 p.m. PST).
"You try to recover as quick as you can," assistant coach Michael Babcock said. "It’s definitely a quick turnaround in terms of it being a seven o’clock and four o’clock game. Get hydrated, get recharged and we’ll tighten some things up for sure. Tomorrow’s gonna be all about our start and its gonna be a quick turnaround for them [Rockford] too but if we impose our will we should be fine."