SAN JOSE, Calif. — Lane Pederson’s late goal lifted the Tucson Roadrunners in the first American Hockey League playoff game in team history Thursday night, a 4-2 victory over the San Jose Barracuda at SAP Center.
Pederson scored with 1:15 remaining, snapping a 2-2 tie to put Tucson up 1-0 in its first-round Calder Cup Playoffs series against San Jose. Center Dylan Strome added an empty-net goal with 14 seconds left to put an exclamation point on the win.
“It was a cool way to end the game, but we’re looking to win the series,” Roadrunners goaltender Adin Hill said. “Tonight we found a way.”
Defenseman Dakota Mermis and center Ryan McInnis also scored for the Roadrunners, who needed the better part of the first two periods to reach double digits in shots on goal. The Roadrunners took just five shots in the first period and had been outshot 32-8 entering the final two minutes of the second.
Some of that had to do with penalties. The Roadrunners were slapped with five of them in the second period and spent much of the period on the penalty kill.
“We couldn’t get any momentum going,” Pederson said. “We couldn’t get any sustained pressure.”
Roadrunners coach Mike Van Ryn called the second period “one of the worst periods we’ve played in a while.”
“We didn’t compete in front of the net,” Van Ryn said. “We didn’t get a lot of second or third chances.”
Still, the Roadrunners had more success converting their chances than the Barracuda during the first two periods, thanks in large part to Hill, who stopped 31 shots in that span and 36 overall. The only blemish on Hill’s performance through the first two periods was a power-play goal by San Jose center Alexander True, who fired a slap shot past the left post from just inside the blue line 9:33 into the second period.
“He held us in it,” Van Ryn said of Hill. “He was outstanding for us. You need goaltending in the playoffs.”
In beating the Barracuda, Tucson topped the only team that it did not finish at least .500 against during the regular season. The Roadrunners also defeated a team that had entered the playoffs on a six-game winning streak.
Mermis put the Roadrunners on the scoreboard first at 11:04 of the first period. Mermis took a feed from Pederson in the right face-off circle and sent the puck past Barracuda goalie Antoine Bibeau to put Tucson up 1-0.
McInnis put Tucson back in front moments after True’s game-tying goal, scoring at 9:56 of the second period to give the Roadrunners a 2-1 lead. Left wing Trevor Cheek and defenseman Joel Hanley were each credited with assists on that goal.
San Jose’s Alexander Chmelevsky tied the score at 2-2 at the 5:16 mark of the third period. The Roadrunners held San Jose in check after that, limiting the Barracuda to just six shots in the third period.
