Carpenter Shines in Gulls Victory Over IceHogs
Mar 7, 2026By Ashley Rubin/SanDiegoGulls.com
The San Diego Gulls found their redemption and defeated the Rockford IceHogs tonight at Pechanga Arena San Diego, 6-4.
Tonight’s victory was essential for the Gulls. A three-game losing streak was broken and the team brings themselves to 62 points, which holds their sixth-position spot in the Pacific Division standings. Special teams played a huge role as the team went 3-for-4 on the powerplay and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill, including a 5-on-3 in the first.
The crowd was entertained early as Nikita Nesterenko opened the scoring shorthanded on a breakaway straight out of the penalty box. San Diego is tied for second in most shorthanded goals amongst the AHL with nine. Nesterenko has picked up 3-4=7 points this season with this being his first shorthanded goal of the season and second of his AHL career.
Ryan Carpenter, Sam Colangelo, and Tristan Luneau worked as a unit to keep the momentum going in the first. Carpenter found himself a three-point night starting as he netted two powerplay goals just one minute and 31 seconds apart, the first marking his 100th career AHL goal. The captain co-leads all Gulls skaters in powerplay goals this season with five. Carpenter later picked up an assist on the empty net goal, bringing his total points to 14-20=34 this season. Luneau and Colangelo were credited the assists on both of Carpenter’s goals. Luneau has logged 1-5=6 points in his past four contests while Colangelo has logged 2-2=4 points in his past four.
"Even though they tied it up, we were able to roll on the power play," Carpenter said. "We've had the same units now for a little bit, and so there's some chemistry developing there, and maybe some reads that maybe early on we weren't able to make. And so, we stepped up and found a way to win. I'm sure we wanted to be better 5-on-5 and not give up as much, maybe find ways to create more. But at this point, we're going to take the win."
Special teams stayed solid with Stian Solberg scoring the third penalty goal on the third opportunity. Solberg has netted nine total goals this season with this being his second on the man advantage. The defenseman has tripled his point count from last season with 9-6=15.
Coulson Pitre kept the scoring going in the third, finding the back of the net just 14 seconds into the period. The goal marks his second of the season and went on to be the game winner, his first this year.
The victory was sealed as Nikolas Brouillard found an empty netter with 17 seconds remaining in the game. The goal marked his 26th with San Diego, moving him into sole possession of the Gulls all-time lead for defensemen. Brouillard has found four goals this season and now totals 21 points, ranking second amongst all Gulls defenders.
Goaltender Calle Clang made his first appearance in the crease since Mar. 4. Clang faced 28 total shots and allowed only four through.
Forward Judd Caulfield and defenseman Roland McKeown tallied two assists each. The assists give Caulfield 0-4=4 points in his past four contests while they broke a seven-game goal drought for McKeown. Nathan Gaucher and Cal Burke also tallied an assist each tonight.
"I thought we came out really hard tonight," Caulfield said. "It was good to get on the board early, and I thought we played an overall pretty good game but still gave up a little bit too much on the defensive side of things. Giving up four goals isn't what we went into the game thinking, but to get out of there with a win is huge, and we just got to keep getting wins and stack them moving forward."
San Diego will next face off with the San Jose Barracuda on Wednesday, Mar. 11 at Tech CU Arena (7 p.m. PST).
"We'll get a couple practice days, couple good workouts at home, couple good sleeps in our own beds, and then it's a shorter flight up to San Jose," Carpenter said. "So, we got to remember what happened a week ago. Even though it was a close game, felt like they really took it to us, and I'm sure we'll be well prepared for Wednesday."