Seal ‘dominated from start to finish’ in home opener

The San Diego Seals have traditionally enjoyed a strong home-field advantage at Pechanga Arena. But the folks who took in Sunday afternoon’s nationally televised game against the Rochester Knighthawks never really got a chance to make much noise.

The Seals (1-1) fell behind just 27 seconds into the game, trailed 3-1 after the first period and only briefly threatened to really make things truly competitive en route to a 15-7 loss to the Knighthawks (0-1).

The Seals finished with a 62-46 edge in shots on goal but went 1-for-4 on the power play against 2-for-4 on the penalty kill and struggled to crack Rochester goalie Ryan Hartley who made several excellent saves including a spectacular diving effort to thwart Tre Leclaire in the fourth period.

Pat Kavanaugh (two goals, four assists), Dylan Watson (two goals, one assist) and Leclaire (one goal, two assists) paced scoring efforts for San Diego, while six players scored for Rochester. Thomas McCovney and Connor Fields each netted four goals.

The loss dropped the Seals to 4-3 all-time in home openers and to 21-7 at Pechanga Arena since the start of the 2022-23 season.

“We got dominated from start to finish,” Seals general manager and head coach Patrick Merrill said. “I feel bad for our fans. We were really, really excited to come back. Felt like we played well in game one so we were excited to be at home and be in front of these fan base but we didn’t give ’em much to cheer about right from the opening whistle. Our execution needs to be much better. We pride ourselves on being a hard-working, physical team, but it was clear that they outworked us here tonight.”

Seals starting goalie Chris Origlieri was pulled for backup Cameron Dunkerly with the Seals trailing 8-2 with 4:30 remaining in the first half and the Seals responded with goals from Robinson and Kavanaugh. Then drew within 8-6 on goals from Leclaire and Watson early in the third period, but the visitors never relented and dominated through the remainder of the game, finishing on a 7-1 run.

Merrill rotated Origlieri and Dunkerly twice during the contest but did not pin the loss on goalie play.

Origlieri allowed 12 goals in 44 minutes, 36 seconds of game action, while Dunkerly allowed three in 15:24.

Some of the goals were the product of the Knighthawks making slick passes and nice individual moves. Others appeared to be of the very stoppable variety.

Either way, the end result was a tough result for the home team.

“Just looking for a spark,” Merrill said. “It’s a game of runs. But I can’t hang that game on either goalie. We didn’t play well enough or execute well enough in front of either one of them. I don’t think either of them would say they had their best night either, but they were the least of my concerns. When you do that, juggle things, it’s to find some kind of positive momentum and we could never really find it.”

The Seals opened the season on Nov. 29 with a 16-13 road victory over the Ottawa Black Bears and will not play again until Jan. 3, when they host the Calgary Roughnecks.

“I can assure you, the fans are going to see a different team on January third,” Merrill said. “Getting to wear this jersey and perform in front of these fans is something we take very seriously and we are disappointed in ourselves.”

Notable

Announced attendance was 7,900.

The Seals played without forward Corey Small (upper body injury).