Said Karl Taylor, "we gutted it out."

"We weren't perfect," the coach said. "That was a hard game for us to win. Every time we got a two-goal lead, (Victoria) pushed back. They're trying really hard to get off this slide. We were very fortunate. I never felt safe. We were very happy to get that win and get out of Dodge."

King added a clutch blocked shot while the Reign killed off a 5-on-3 power play for the second straight night. Ontario's PK unit, which entered the game ranked fifth in the ECHL, finished 9-for-10.

Darling had to stand on his head at times; even he couldn't remember how many times he stopped Olivier Latendresse during a frantic sequence of rebounds and putbacks midway through the second period (it was four by my count).

"It was a little bit of both (skill and luck)," he said. "Bounces go both ways -- we've scored a couple on ourselves this year, and we hit a couple posts tonight."

Rheault's short-handed goal was the second for the Reign this season. It was almost more of a 4-on-4 goal; a Victoria player broke his stick on a one-timer from just inside the Reign blue line, allowing Shawn Germain to break out 2-on-2 with Rheault, who snapped home a rebound off Germain's one-timer with 59.1 seconds left before the first intermission.

Voce had a busy game early and a quiet one late. In addition to scoring the game's first goal, he was sent to the penalty box for unsportsmanlike conduct for some comment(s) made to an official, setting up the Salmon Kings' lone 5-on-3 power play in the middle period.

"It's a very undisciplined play, and (Voce) knows that," Taylor said. "As a team we can't be making those. Shane (Warschaw) is trying his best. There's lots of calls both ways, good, bad, whatever, the ref's doing the best job he can. We just have to deal with it and shut our mouths."

Voce didn't finish the game on the ice or on the bench -- more details on that in tomorrow's editions.

Victoria falls to 1-10-0, further into ECHL oblivion, with a remarkable two points to show for its first 10 games. I asked Murray -- who was applauded during pregame introductions -- about his new team before the game.

"Victoria's a great town; we're just waiting to find one thing to push us out there," he said. "Try to get us going on a streak. Right now we're struggling a bit. We need to find our identity. Once we get one, we'll get a few, then things will figure themselves out."

"What I think is going to be worse than the crowd is if I go behind the net to play a puck, and somebody says, like Geoff Walker calls for the puck, I'm going to instinctively go to pass it to him," Murray said. "I think that might be the difference. They know my weak spots. I know where they're shooting. It's going to be a crapshoot."

"I think we played hard again, and we played smart," coach Karl Taylor said. "We buried our chances for the most part, which was a difference from Wednesday. We'd like to have more shots, but we'll take the win. Right now we're trying to climb a little bit. WE like the way our team is playing, and the direction we're heading. We feel as a team that we got rewarded today based on Wednesday's effort, Sunday's effort. We finally got a little fruit for our labor. It's a small step forward, but we've got to get ready for tomorrow."

Olivier Latendresse tied the game at 4:51 of the second period on a power play; both teams went 1-for-4 with the man advantage.

Voce scored at 8:26 of the second, getting good tic-tac-toe passing from Geoff Walker, to David Walker, to Voce on a breakaway. It was the fourth goal of the season for Voce -- not the third, as tomorrrow's print editions will show -- because Taylor changed the goal credited to Geoff Walker on Wednesday to Voce after reviewing the game video.

The crowd gave a warm hand to Landry after he blasted home a slapshot at 13:18 to make it 3-1.

Lenes' third goal of the season completed an odd-man rush with Dwight King, who showed a deft touch on his long left-to-right pass to Voce in the slot at 8:16 of the third.

The standout performance belonged to Darling, who had a week between games while Mike Zacharias tended goal for the Reign. Darling faced two shots in the first, 10 in the second, and 13 in the third -- almost the ideal situation for a goaltender looking to get re-acclimated. He got help at one point in the third period from Shawn Germain, who fell headlong to the ice to block a puck headed for an open net.

"I thought our team did a really good job of protecting me in the first period, keeping everything to the outside," Darling said. "(Victoria) pushed really hard (in the third period). They made some plays, we got lucky, Germ (Shawn Germain) made a good save right there, otherwise it's a different game. I don't think the score is a reflection of the type of game it was tonight. I thought it was a pretty tight game. If things go differently there, it's a whole different third period. We weathered the storm well."

Former Reign goaltender John Murray didn't see any game action for the Salmon Kings, though it looked like he might late in the first period after Jon Francisco accidentally clipped Glenn Fisher in the helmet with the butt end of his stick. Blood poured from the goalie's nose -- which might have been broken on the play -- but Fisher cleaned up his face, returned to the crease, and cleaned the blood off the ice before finishing the game.

Kids ages 4 to 9 are invited to a free clinic from 12 to 1:30 p.m. All kids who register will get a free ticket to the Reign game on Saturday night (7 p.m.) against the Victoria Salmon Kings.

Because of the Adam Henrich-for-Landry trade, I didn't have room for the usual depth of game details. Here they are ...

- The lone man-advantage goal was Geoff Walker's. It wasn't exactly a garbage goal, but certainly a good example of the big guy using his positioning to get his stick on a centering pass to the crease (from Tony Voce) with both a goalie and a defenseman flanking him.

- Both Karl Taylor and Geoff Walker agreed that Walker was somewhat out of game shape after playing just two games for Manchester.

- There were actually two Reign shots off the goal frame. In addition to Jon Rheault's short-handed clanger off the crossbar in the second period, Daryl King hit a post from longer range in the third.

- I'd have to dig a bit to see if it's a record, but the final shot count margin (37-20) favored the Reign more than any recent memory serves.

- Stockton's Colton Yellow Horn, who scored his first goal of the season, is an indigenous North American -- or, as they're known in Canada, First Nations. His hometown is listed as Brocket, a city in Southern Alberta located on Peigan land. (Enough people in the press box were questioning his name that I found this worth looking up. Of course, he's also an accomplished hockey player.)

- Robert Pearce was at right wing on a line with Dwight King and Michael Pelech. He played quite a bit in the first period, after which Peter Lenes took most of the shifts in that spot. "I thought he played hard, had good energy. He's just got to get his legs under him," Taylor said of Pearce. James McEwan got his first night off all season.

- Taylor said that it was the fourth straight game in which an off-ice official at The Bank was late to stop the clock when there was a whistle in the final seconds of the third period (and thus costing the Reign a possible scoring chance). The off-ice official disagreed. No need to go any deeper than that, but it's something to watch for.

- On a similar note, the on-ice officials called a loose game by ECHL standards: only eight penalties total, all minors. As a result, the game went fast and there were a lot of hard hits that ended as just that: Hard hits. Quite refreshing and entertaining.

Jon Rheault scored with 9:10 left in the third period to tie the game at 2. He nearly had another in the first period, when he hit the post on a short-handed 1-on-1 rush against Stockton goaltender Bryan Pitton.

After being sent down by the Kings' AHL affiliate, where he played just two scoreless games this season, Walker was practicing in Ontario for the first time Tuesday.

"They wanted me to come here and play some games, get back into playing games every day and being a regular game player, instead of being in and out," Walker said. "I would have to say I'd rather be here playing some games, getting myself back into game shape, instead of not playing up there. You can backskate all you want, but it's not the same as a game."

"Usually they come down and they expect it to be too easy," Taylor said. "Usually they struggle early on. Then they start to listen finally, then they recover and push back. That's usually what occurs."

At least in Walker's case, he'll have plenty of help shouldering the scoring load, something he did often in 2008-09. The 6-foot-3 right wing netted 48 points, tied for the team lead, and a team-high 21 goals.

"We still expect him to score," Taylor said, "but there will be less pressure."

And he's come into a familiar environment. In addition to the 11 returning players from last season, Walker's already gotten to know Dwight King and Michael Pelech, who joined him at the Kings' training camp.

"Obviously, I was a little disappointed (to be sent down), but I've come to a great place," Walker said. "There's great guys on the team. It's a lot easier to come somewhere you like being. You never want to get sent down. Hopefully I'll work hard and get back up."

Manchester is currently tied for the best record in the AHL with 19 points (9-2-1) which, Walker pointed out, makes their lineup a tough one to crack. Taylor didn't specify whether a corresponding roster move would have to be made to accommodate Walker.

Here's what Taylor said about Tuesday's practice:

"We need to work on a few things. I thought this weekend we took a number of good steps forward. We worked on 5-on-3 power play stuff; we have to improve in that area. We worked on our neutral zone game, and also our breakouts. I felt the other team hemmed us in at times, gave us fits in our zone, and we need to be crisper and cleaner on our breakouts. "