TABLES TURNED ON IOWA AS GULLS PREVAIL

The Iowa Wild play a physical brand of hockey, and San Diego Gulls coach Joel Bouchard was excited to see how his team would respond with a weekend series against the Central Division team.

On Saturday night, after a 5-3 Gulls victory at Pechanga Arena, the answer was: very well.

Bryce Kindopp, Buddy Robinson, Lucas Elvenes, Brent Gates Jr. and Danny O’regan scored goals, Lukas Dostal finished with 32 saves and the Gulls (2726-3-1) rode a dominating second period burst and a money penalty-killing unit to bounce back from Friday night’s 2-1 overtime loss to the Wild (25-27-4-4).

The Gulls were outshot, 35-31, but killed all six Iowa power plays and didn’t crumble when Iowa put together a third period surge to make things interesting after San Diego had taken a 4-1 lead.

Iowa won the season series 3-1 overall but Bouchard liked what he saw from his team this weekend.

“They’re a different look, which is good for us,” Bouchard said. “You never know what can happen down the road and we’ve really approached this as a good learning experience and playoff growing.”

Mitchell Chaffee gave Iowa a 1-0 lead at 12:37 of the first period when he sliced in unmarked from the weakside between Buddy Robinson and Drew Helleson, took a pass and snapped a shot past Dostal.

That score held through a first period which featured some big hits and a pair of fights: first San Diego’s Hunter Drew dropped gloves with Dakota Mermis and then, after laying a crushing hit on Calen Addison that drew a penalty, San Diego’s Greg Printz squared up with Mermis, who had skated Printz down from behind to defend his teammate.

The Gulls drew even at 1-1 on a Kindopp power play goal at 6:50 of the second period that was a product of patience and good passing.

Trevor Carrick moved the puck across the formation to Brogan Rafferty, who in turn passed to Kindopp, who slipped it home for his 11th goal of the season.

The Gulls used more forechecking pressure and more slick passing to go ahead 3-1 on second period goals from Robinson (10:15) and Elvenes (11:01).

Gates made it 4-1 on a power play goal at 7:26 of the third, his 10th goal of the season. Carrick picked up his third assist of the game on the play.

Iowa answered with goals from Kevin Czuczman and another from Chafee to cut the San Diego lead to 4-3 with seven minutes to play.

That is when the penalty killing units came up big as the Gulls maintained good defensive structure in front of Dostal and held the Wild to three shots and no goals on a pair of power play chances in the final six minutes. O’regan snagged his 12th goal of the season on an empty netter with 22 seconds remaining.