Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
The Ontario Reign were shut out in back-to-back games last weekend, with Colorado Eagles goaltender Trent Miner turning in a pair of masterpieces.
But nights like those are rare for the Reign, who boast one of the strongest forward groups in the AHL. And they will need that scoring, too, as they try to elbow aside several competitors for the Pacific Division lead.
Three points separate Coachella Valley from Ontario, with Colorado and Calgary sandwiched between them. The Reign, Firebirds, Wranglers and Eagles have all woken up in first place in the division at some point in just the last week.
And locking down the division title brings a valuable reward: the Pacific Division’s first-place finisher gets a bye in the best-of-three first round, avoiding potentially running into a hot goaltender in a short series.
The Reign are back in action tonight hosting Tucson before starting a home-and-home set with San Diego. One of the keys for Ontario down the stretch will be their All-Star forward Samuel Fagemo, who returned to the lineup last week after missing the previous five contests. When Fagemo gets hot, few teams if any possess as dangerous an offensive weapon as the Swedish-born forward who scored 43 goals in just 50 games last season.
Fagemo, who turns 25 next week, was taken by the Los Angeles Kings in the second round of the 2019 NHL Draft. He has scored at a remarkable pace in the AHL – in 247 games with the Reign, he has scored 124 goals – but it hasn’t translated to NHL success yet. Nashville claimed him off waivers at the start of the 2023-24 season, but he got into just four games with the Predators before being placed back on waivers and reclaimed by the Kings. In all, Fagemo has three goals and one assist in 21 NHL appearances.
He owns an elite shot, and it’s one that he uses consistently. His 155 shots on goal place him sixth in the AHL this season. It’s an accurate one, too, scoring on a robust 17.4 percent of his shots over his AHL career.
Fagemo is on a one-year contract with Los Angeles for 2024-25. The Kings – and the NHL’s 31 other organizations, for that matter – know that he can churn out one goal after another at the AHL level. But can he do that in the NHL? And more importantly, can he be the effective, reliable two-way presence that every NHL team seeks?
Fagemo thinks he can.
“The biggest thing is to stay consistent in the 200-foot game,” Fagemo said. “That’s the thing I’ve been really working this year. I’m just trying to work hard every day and to hope to finally get one more shot at it.”
Reign head coach Marco Sturm played 938 NHL games with six NHL teams, including the Kings. A scorer throughout his career, he had to repurpose himself late in his playing career as someone who could contribute in ways beyond the scoresheet. That’s a blueprint that Fagemo can follow.
“He fits me well,” Fagemo said of his coach. “He’s [a] development coach. He talks a lot to the players. Very positive-minded, but expects a lot, too.
“I’m really thankful that he believes in me so much and plays me a lot, so that helps me to grow, too. I have a really good relationship with him.”
It’s day-by-day work – a detail here, a detail there – that can take Fagemo back to the NHL. There’s practice and development time, and then it’s a matter of applying it game-in, game-out, on the ice.
The thing is, Fagemo does not have to carry the Ontario offense, either. None of the Reign forwards do. The Reign are averaging 3.24 goals per game, with seven forwards in double digits. Charles Hudon is tied for seventh in the AHL with 48 points, and Jeff Malott (17 goals, 25 assists) and Glenn Gawdin (15 goals, 28 assists) are close behind.
Last season, the Reign finished with 91 points in the regular season and swept their first two playoff series before falling to Coachella Valley in the division finals. Navigating the division again this spring figures to be difficult, but there is plenty of reason to think that Ontario can take that next step.
Stout defensive play is what takes teams deep into May and June. It’s also what can push Fagemo in the NHL to stay.
“The biggest thing for me right now,” Fagemo said, “is just to be patient and hopefully get a chance.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.
