It took 12 games into the season, but the San Diego Gulls have won back-to-back games — and consecutive road victories to boot.
The Gulls completed a two-game sweep at San Jose on Saturday afternoon with a 2-1 victory over the Barracuda. That was on the heels of a 4-3 triumph on Friday night at SAP Center. Now both teams are 5-6-1-0 in the AHL’s Pacific Division.
Goalie Olle Eriksson Ek stopped 22-of-23 shots for his second victory of the season and improved to a 4-0-0 career record against San Jose. Eriksson Ek has backstopped San Diego to standings points in each of his last three starts (2-0-1) while posting a 1.61 goals-against average with a .944 save percentage.
The Gulls scored both of their goals in the first period. The opener was by Nikolas Brouillard at 9:19 and the second by Greg Printz at 12:14.
San Jose’s only goal came on the power play in the second period.
The only negative for the Gulls was Jacob Perreault saw his career-high point streak of eight games end.
Assistant coach Max Talbot told media representatives the key for the Gulls was jumping off to a fast start.
“It’s very important,” said Talbot. “I thought we had a couple of chances in the first (where) we could have even been up one or two more goals. … So, we came out of the gate and I like that we’re growing as a team. Like I said, we’re taking steps in the right direction, it’s maturity and this weekend was good.”
The Gulls will return home to host San Jose for a pair of games at 7 p.m. Wednesday and 5 p.m. on Friday