Seals Win Low-Scoring Affair Over Black Bears

Shawn Slaght

The San Diego Seals pulled off the victory with a 6-5 low-scoring affair over the Ottawa Black Bears on Saturday night at Pechanga Arena.

It was a historically low-scoring affair. The two teams tied the fewest combined goals with 11. It tied the Albany vs. Toronto game in January of 2001 with 11 goals. Meanwhile, San Diego set a new record for the fewest goals by a winning home team with six. There were six other games where the winning team had seven goals.

Needless to say, Saturday night’s game was a goaltending clinic. Zach Higgins only allowed six goals and made 46 stops in the Ottawa goal despite the loss. Chris Origlieri had a bounce-back game with 31 saves and didn’t allow an Ottawa goal in the entire second half.

While both teams have high-powered offences, it was a head-scratcher as many of their top scorers were held in check. Jeff Teat was held to only one goal for the Black Bears, as was Jacob Dunbar, Nathon Grenon and Taggart Clark.

For the Seals, Wes Berg had a relatively quiet night with two goals and one assist and Rob Hellyer had a goal and two assists. Ryan Benesch was held to two assists and Ben McIntosh had only one goal.

First Quarter

McIntosh gave the Seals the early 1-0, scoring 1:24 into the game. Special teams for both teams would then take over.

Grenon scored on the power play unassisted at 5:16, but Hellyer regained the lead for the Seals on the power play at 9:21.

Clark rounded out the first-quarter scoring with 4:10 remaining on the clock to tie up the game 2-2 at the first break.

Second Quarter

San Diego started to grab some momentum early in the second quarter. Graydon Bradley, who was back in the line-up for the Seals, buried to feed from Eli Gobrecht at 3:28.

Origlieri then found Matthew Wright in transition 27 seconds later for his first NLL goal to give San Diego a 4-2 advantage.

Ottawa would finish off the first half with a three-goal run. Right off the ensuing faceoff, Jay Thorimbert went down the floor and scored. Teat found the back of the net 47 seconds after that to tie the game 4-4.

Dunbar scored against his former team with 7:02 left on the clock as the Black Bears held a 5-4 lead at halftime.

Second Half

The entire second half of this game was a head-scratcher as only two goals were scored, all in the third quarter.

Berg scored off a feed from Hellyer 40 seconds into the third quarter to tie the game. Berg struck again at 1:38 on the third for the game-winning goal.

Both teams had their chances in the second half, but the best they could come up with was iron. In particular, Ottawa had the final shot of the game. They had a chance to send it to overtime but rang it off the post. The low-scoring affair would end with a Seals win, 6-5.