After acquiring his rights during the week of the trade deadline last year, Erik Portillo has shown signs of growth with the Ontario Reign.
Us seeing Portillo do what he does best #ReignTrain | #ONTvsCGY pic.twitter.com/GGOWjBYEst
— Ontario Reign (@ontarioreign) January 12, 2024
Stat line: 12-8-1, 2.60 GAA, .918 save percentage, and two shutouts
When acquiring Portillo’s rights, the Kings envisioned him as their future goalie. After the legacy Jonathan Quick created during his 16-year run in LA, those will be big shoes to fill for the 23-year-old netminder. Starting the season in Ontario, Portillo was the backup to veteran David Rittich. For a while now, the Kings have been known to bring in a veteran netminder as the third goalie on the depth chart and be a mentor to their goalie prospect.
Portillo made his professional debut on October 21st and earned the win by making 15 saves on 17 shots faced in a 3-2 victory for the Reign over the Bakersfield Condors. Eight days later, he made his home debut against the Abbotsford Canucks. In that game, I noticed two things in his style of play I would see down the line.
Those two things were that he is aggressive and loves to play the puck. Portillo loves to play the puck so much he got called for a delay of game penalty for playing the puck outside of the trapezoid area (you don’t see that every game). When it comes to being aggressive, he’ll use his size as an advantage while being square to the shooter and covering up the net.
Big point blank save by Portillo on Josh Doan pic.twitter.com/g9p9YRxgF5
— Ontario Reign (@ontarioreign) November 29, 2023
However, sometimes he can be too aggressive, which can lead to him being out of position and scrambling.
Erik Portillo is known to be aggressive, but this one works against him. Leads to him being out of position and slow to react. Rookie mistake that he can learn from. #ReignTrain pic.twitter.com/qXEX9spV3V
— Kyle Garcia (@Kopitar4HOF) January 31, 2024
In the clip above, once Portillo is caught out of the blue paint, he is slow to react. I like to see him stay in the blue paint and use that 6’6 frame of his as an advantage. The good news is this is something he can fix.
One area I like to see him continue to improve on is his rebound control. There have been instances throughout the season where he tends to give up a big rebound and lose sight of the puck, which leads to him being out of position and scrambling. That’s been up and down so far, but he’s shown improvements in that aspect.
After Rittich was called up to the Kings after Pheonix Copley suffered a season-ending ACL injury in practice, Portillo was given a bigger role. In the last 20 games, he’s started 13 of them. While he struggled being treated as the number-one goalie early in that stretch, he bounced back and showed he could handle the workload.
Overall, Portillo has been better than expected for his rookie season. The progress he has made from college to the professional ranks has been encouraging after a rough showing in the Rookie Faceoff tournament. Among qualified rookie goalies in the American Hockey League, Portillo is fifth in wins (12), fourth in goals against average (2.60), and third in save percentage (.918). He is also top 20 in all three categories among all qualified goalies.
Only four qualified rookie goalies in the AHL have a save percentage over .910
Erik Portillo is one of them with a .918 sv% (3rd). Good bounce back game for him tonight, only allowing two goals against.
One off a bad break, the other off the rush on a follow-up rebound goal.…
— Kyle Garcia (@Kopitar4HOF) February 4, 2024
Given how thin the pipeline is at goalie, the organization has to be pleased with Portillo’s season up to this point. Some will suggest giving him a look on the Kings next year, and that’s fine. I don’t think the Kings should rush to have him in the NHL, even given the possible cap crunch and needing a goalie for next season. Another season in the AHL can help his development. The 2025-26 season is a good starting point for NHL status for him.
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