Alexandrov leads Reign past Gulls 4-1 with three-point night

San Diego got the first punch at Toyota Arena, but Ontario spent the rest of the night showing why first place is more than a standings line. After Cal Burke put the Gulls ahead on a power play at 9:26 of the first period, the Reign answered before intermission, then kept leaning on San Diego until a one-goal scare turned into a 4-1 finish.

Nikita Alexandrov started the turnaround. He tied it at 19:27 of the opening period, then gave Ontario the lead just 3:11 into the second when he converted on the power play with Logan Brown and Martin Chromiak drawing the assists. That goal mattered because it changed the shape of the game: San Diego had the early edge, but Ontario had the better pace, the cleaner puck movement, and the deeper finishers once the Reign settled in.

Alexandrov finished with two goals and an assist, while Chromiak added a goal and two assists and Kenny Connors matched him with a goal and two assists. Brown chipped in two assists as Ontario’s top line and power-play unit kept San Diego chasing. The Reign’s fourth goal came on a third-period 5-on-3, the kind of man-advantage sequence that turns a tight game into a comfortable one and underlined how decisive special teams were in the result.

The shot chart backed up the score. Ontario outshot San Diego 31-24 and controlled the final period enough to leave the Gulls with only four shots in the third. Damian Clara faced 31 shots in net for San Diego and stopped 27, but the Gulls could not keep up once Ontario’s pressure started tilting shifts into the offensive zone. Burke’s goal and assists from Stian Solberg and Roland McKeown gave San Diego a brief foothold, yet the Gulls never found another answer after Ontario tied it.

The win extended Ontario’s run to six straight and kept alive an even louder trend at home, where the Reign had won seven in a row at Toyota Arena and earned at least one point in 13 consecutive home games. In front of 9,461 fans in Ontario, California, the Reign did not change their playoff position, and neither did San Diego, which was already locked into the Pacific Division’s seventh seed while Ontario had already secured first. Still, the final mattered. The teams split the 2025-26 season series, with San Diego finishing 2-1-1-0 against Ontario, and the Reign walked away with the cleaner statement: when they get hit first, they can still take the game back.