By Taylor Lupetti (@tayclupetti):
After being shut out by the Stockton Heat on Wednesday, the San Jose Barracuda (9-10-0-1) returned to SAP Center for a 3-1 loss against the Tucson Roadrunners (12-4-2-1) on the night of head coach Roy Sommer’s 1,500th game.
“I thought it was a sloppy first but I thought we played really well in the second and then in the third it was pretty even,” Sommer said. “We had a break there at the end but I was pretty confident that we were going to go into overtime.”
The Roadrunners are the No.1 team in the Pacific Division, their time at SAP tonight was the first of eight games against the Cuda this season. Despite the Cuda’s best efforts and 34 shots on net, the puck could not get through Tucson goaltender Hunter Miska.
“We played a good game,” said Barracuda goaltender Antoine Bibeau. “Especially after last game, everyone wanted to come out and play better because we played like shit last game and I think we did, we just couldn’t score.”
Tucson was first on the scoreboard with two minutes remaining in the first period. Left-wing forward Michael Bunting scored with assists from teammates center Tyler Gaudet and center Michael Latta.
The Cuda tied it up in the second period with a powerplay goal by left-wing forward Rudolfs Balcers three minutes into the second period with no assists.
“Balcers could have had a hat trick on his own,” Sommer said. “He’s the right guy you want the puck with, he’s kind of our go to guy, we just haven’t gotten a lot of scoring from anyone else.”
The third period remained scoreless and looked like it was heading into overtime until the final two minutes. Within 30 seconds of each other, right-wing forward Mike Sislo and Bunting again slipped two goals past Bibeau.
“I don’t know what happened really,” Bibeau said. “It was really quick.”
Returning to the Barracuda’s line-up was center Danny O’Regan who was called down from the San Jose Sharks and welcomed by his old Barracuda teammates
“We played together before he got called up,” Balcers said. “It’s nice to have him back. We play pretty similarly. He’s fast, I’m fast, we find each other so it’s been good.”
San Jose is now hitting the road for two more chances at victory against the Roadrunners at the Tucson Arena. The pucks drop Tuesday and Wednesday both at 6:05 p.m.