Ontario Reign: Erik Portillo’s Season Update

Portillo’s season so far

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.

However, sometimes he can be too aggressive, which can lead to him being out of position and scrambling.

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.

NHL next year?

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.