Idaho 7, Reign 2.

Here are the season totals for Aki Seitsonen, Geoff Irwin and Bear Trapp before Friday:

Seistonen: 8 goals, 11 assists, minus-10
Irwin: 9 goals, 5 assists, minus-3
Trapp: 0 goals, 1 assist, minus-1, 1 sweet name.

Not exactly eye-popping statistics. But put together, the trio were the primary beneficiaries of a lackadaisical effort by the Reign. Their totals Friday:

Seitsonen: 2 goals, 3 assists, plus-4
Irwin: 1 goal, 3 assists, plus-4
Trapp: 1 goal, 1 assist, plus-4, 1 fight.

The net result of their efforts was the Reign’s most lopsided loss since Jan. 21. Just when you thought they were turning a corner …

Here’s how Karl Taylor broke it down: “I thought we had a good first period. They got the late goal on a mental letdown there. We shouldn’t have given up that opportunity. It was 4-2 going into the third, we weren’t playing the way we needed to. They played better, but off the rush we gave them too many odd-man looks. In the third period it got away from us obviously.”

The Reign fell to eight points behind Victoria in the Western Conference standings with 16 games to go. Grabbing a playoff spot still isn’t impossible, but with any more games like Friday’s, they won’t deserve it.

More details in tomorrow’s editions of the Sun and Daily Bulletin.

A couple notes that didn’t make the paper:

• Alex Bourret passed his concussion tests earlier in the week and, in his first game back, got into two fights (the second was merely counted as a double-minor for roughing). Bourret said that he wanted to play more of an energy role with two scoring lines (Lewadniuk-Pelech-Kraemer and Taylor-Morrison-Johnson) clicking. One year in the QMJHL, Bourret believes he got into about 15 fights.

• Chaz Johnson’s seven-game point streak ended. It was tied for the fifth-longest active streak in the ECHL.

• Terry Wheaton, an open-tryout camper each year of the Reign’s existence, served as the emergency backup for the second time, the first coming in Feb. 2009. Dennis Cook, normally the Reign’s emergency backup, was supposed to be the emergency backup goalie for the Idaho Steelheads. But the Steelheads got Jase Weselosky back from the AHL earlier in the day, and so Cook was no longer needed by either team after Wheaton got the call.

This entry was posted in Ontario Reign/ECHL and tagged , , , , by J.P. Hoornstra. Bookmark the permalink.

About J.P. Hoornstra

J.P. Hoornstra covers the Dodgers, Angels and Major League Baseball for the Orange County Register, Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Torrance Daily Breeze, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News, San Bernardino Sun, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Whittier Daily News and Redlands Daily Facts. Before taking the beat in 2012, J.P. covered the NHL for four years. UCLA gave him a degree once upon a time; when he graduated on schedule, he missed getting Arnold Schwarzenegger's autograph on his diploma by five months.