Jon Rheault made a noisy return to the Reign, but his teammates had a quiet night on the scoresheet. Rheault’s unassisted short-handed tally was the only goal in a 2-1 loss to the Victoria Salmon Kings at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Center Friday night.
Rheault, who spent the past two weeks with the American Hockey League’s Providence Bruins, needed just 9:07 to score his team-leading 10th goal of the season.
Victoria (5-11-1) answered with goals by Mike Hamilton and Scott Howes in the second and third periods, respectively. Curtis Darling, making his first start in nine days, stopped 25 of 27, including a first-period penalty shot by Chad Painchaud.
Chris Curran made his season debut for the Reign, who had the better scoring chances in the game according to the recap in the Victoria Times-Colonist.
The teams will meet again tonight in Victoria for the seventh time this season. After that, The Reign will play the Salmon Kings only once more, Dec. 6 at Citizens Business Bank Arena.
With the loss, the Reign fell to 8-9-2, and their 18 points trail the Bakersfield Condors by eight points for first place in the Pacific Division. The Condors won their fifth straight Friday, 4-1 over Las Vegas.