ONTARIO, CA. -- The Ontario Reign are now 18-6-0 in the first three months of 2026, putting on a dominant performance night in and night out.
And tonight wouldn’t be any different.
While defeating the Tucson Roadrunners 4-1 Wednesday night in Ontario, the Reign would improve to a season-best five straight wins.
“I think we have great leadership, great coaching,” Angus Booth said in postgame interviews. “They always say great teams always find a way to win, so we’re always in the mix. And we’ll pull away when the time comes, but I think we play a gritty game.”
Kenny Connors, Booth and Jared Wright made their NHL debut Monday night with the Los Angeles Kings. And while they were back with the Ontario Reign tonight, they aren’t the same people as they were last week.
Because now, they had their opportunity to play in the big league.
Something they could’ve only dreamed of during their best night of sleep.
“I still can’t believe it,” Wright said. “It’s just been such a long journey. I mean it’s the NHL, it’s what everyone dreams of. And I think earlier if you would’ve asked me (about) my hockey career it was just to play varsity hockey at St. Thomas Academy and then it evolved to playing at (University of Denver) and then I wanted to win a national championship. And then somehow by the luck of God I’ve been able to make it to the NHL when I got called up, and it’s just a very big blessing and I’ve just had a huge supporting cast growing up.”
Booth scored his first NHL goal Monday night, and although he knows how special of a moment it was, he said he hasn’t realized the full extent of it all, or how it even happened, but regardless he was all smiles.
And so was the rest of the team.
“To see all three go up in the same day and take warmup, it was really special,” Ontario coach Andrew Lord said. “We were jumping around like kids up top watching when (Booth) put that one home, we needed to settle down a bit so it was a lot of fun. Honestly I think, probably the best thing is (Booth) and (Wright) come back down and don’t miss a beat.”
Martin Chromiak scored his 18th goal of the season to put Ontario on the board, a power-play goal with assists from Andre Lee and Logan Brown.
But 40 seconds before the opening period ended, Andrew Agozzino would tie the score for Tucson (24-21-8-0; 56 points).
The second period consisted of a variety of penalties, fights and power-play opportunities.
But neither team could capitalize.
Lee scored a power-play goal three minutes into the third, giving Ontario the 2-1 lead.
Wright would find the back of the net 35 seconds after Lee, and later he scored an empty-net goal to give him 17 total goals on the season.
Erik Portillo finished with 15 saves on 16 shots.
Up next:
Ontario Reign (36-16-1-1; 74 points) hosts Henderson Silver Knights (24-18-6-3; 57 points) Friday at Toyota Arena at 7 p.m.
