Illness sidelines Jack LaFontaine, Logan Terness gets first AHL start

When your goalie coach has to dress as the backup, the roster has already hit the emergency button. Jack LaFontaine was sidelined by illness, Logan Terness got his first AHL start, and Coachella Valley signed goaltending coach Vince Stalletti to an amateur tryout just to make sure it had a second goalie available.

Only in the AHL does a team reach for its own goalie coach to solve a depth problem like this. The Firebirds had already been squeezed by a Seattle Kraken goaltending shuffle that thinned the pipeline, and LaFontaine’s illness left them short in net at exactly the wrong time. LaFontaine had been recalled and reassigned from the Kansas City Mavericks on April 8, then Terness was loaned up from Kansas City on April 10, a sequence that made it obvious Coachella Valley was patching together its crease on the fly.

That is where the systems stress test begins. A rookie first-time AHL starter changes everything in front of him. The Firebirds have to defend more conservatively, keep pucks out of the middle, and clean up the puck-management mistakes that turn harmless exits into extended zone time. Against a team like Ontario, that matters even more. The Reign had already beaten Coachella Valley 4-1 the night before and shut it out 7-0 on April 1, so every bad turnover carried playoff consequences.

The timing was brutal and important. Coachella Valley had already clinched a 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs berth on April 4, but the final stretch of a 72-game regular season still shaped the Pacific Division picture and the momentum heading into the postseason. Ontario’s 3-2 overtime win at Acrisure Arena on April 11, in front of 8,279 fans, clinched the Pacific Division title and underlined how thin the margin was for the Firebirds, even after they had secured their playoff spot.

Terness said the quick turnaround into action was “honestly, helpful,” and the Firebirds needed that kind of calm. Stalletti, hired as Coachella Valley’s goaltending coach on July 17, 2025 after five seasons with UConn men’s hockey, became the emergency option in uniform. For one night, the Firebirds’ structure was not about style or development. It was about surviving the crease long enough to stay on schedule for the next 48 hours.