Iowa trade continues to pay off for Tucson Roadrunners, forward Sammy Walker

Last season, the Utah Hockey Club traded for forward Sammy Walker to help the Roadrunners’ playoff push, a move that continues to pay off for Tucson.

On Feb. 3, Utah traded for Walker from the Minnesota Wild for future considerations and immediately assigned Walker to the Roadrunners.

In his first game for Tucson on Feb. 7, Walker had two goals and two assists as the Roadrunners beat the San Jose Barracuda 4-3 and snapped their eight-game winless streak. He was the first Roadrunner to get four points in a game that season.

“We’re lucky to have Sammy, Sammy’s been one of our leaders,” said Tucson head coach Steve Potvin. “He responds to the stimulus real well, I don’t think you can really rattle him. He’s the guy that shows up every day with the same intention, the same purpose and he’s productive, you could see (Wednesday) night he was getting a little frustrated, but it wasn’t hurting.

“He was actually picking it up a level. That’s what you like to see, how players respond to the stimulus, and when they’re able to take it up a notch, when things aren’t going well, that’s a good sign of character.”

On Saturday, Walker returns to Iowa for a two-game series with the Iowa Wild (2-4-0-1).

Last season, Walker had 11 points in 30 games for Iowa and 22 points in 31 for Tucson. In 2023-24, he had 45 points for the Wild and the year before, he had 48.

This season, Walker has six points in eight games.

“Yeah, it was a good addition, I think he’s a good player, he’s got skill, he makes plays and I think it helps us offensively,” said Tucson center Cameron Hebig. “Fresh start for him, I think he was looking for that and we needed that at the time, so it was good to have him.”

Tucson finished tied for the last playoff spot, getting in on a tiebreaker.

Walker, who is from Edina, Minn., and played for the University of Minnesota, had 2 points in 13 games for Iowa’s NHL parent, the Minnesota Wild. Walker was captain for the Golden Gophers for three years, a program first.

In October, Walker signed a one-year AHL contract with Tucson (3-4-1-0).

Walker joined the Roadrunners as they started their seven-game gem show road trip, so it was a while before the Tucson player actually arrived in the Old Pueblo.

“It’s kind of weird because right when I got here, we were on the three-week road trip, so it felt like I had been around the team for so long and then I come here, I didn’t even know my way around the rink,” Walker said in early October. “But yeah, I mean, it’s always weird being traded mid season.”

Hebig numbers

Tucson right wing Austin Poganski opened up the scoring on Wednesday, and it was a historic assist for Hebig.

He is now tied with Jan Jenik for fifth in Roadrunners history with 74 assists and four shy of 100 career assists.

In addition to Hebig’s move up the charts, defenseman Max Szuber tallied his 50th career AHL assist on Poganski’s goal. It’s Szuber’s second multiple-point game of the year, the only Roadrunner defenseman to do that so far this season.

Poganski moved to 199 points in his AHL career, and it’s his second multi-point game this year.

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“I’ve played with Pogo for a while now and I think we got some chemistry together,” Hebig said. “He works hard, he’s fun to play with. I think there’s room for improvement, too, I think we can keep building on offensively and just building on chemistry; it’s still early so I think there’s still some way to go.”

Hebig later scored two power play goals; he’s the team leader in that stat with three.

“I think we just gotta capitalize on that, we’re up a man and we gotta try to capitalize on that and make most of it and try to help the team with goals on the power play,” Hebig said. “That’s our job with the man advantage.”

Hebig has eight points in eight games, including four goals. He is tied for 18th in the AHL in points.

Hebig is the second Roadrunner to get a three-point game this year, Walker was the first on Oct. 10 at Ontario.

Villalta historic night comes in vain

On Tuesday, Tucson goalie Matthew Villalta had 49 saves in the Roadrunners’ 2-0 loss to the Manitoba Moose.

As of press time, Villalta’s 49 saves are the most in the AHL this year and one shy of the franchise record set by Marek Langhamer in 2017. As of Wednesday night, his 22 saves in the third were the most by an AHL goaltender in a single period, and his 18 in the second frame were the second most in a second period for any goalie in the league.

One of the Moose’s goals was an empty net score.

“Matty was sensational,” Potvin said. “The thing is about our goalies is that they’ve been really, really great. You hate to squander a 51 shot, 49 save performance by Matty; you want to get some points for him.”

Villalta is 3-1 this year with a 2.49 goals against average and a .923 save percentage.

Potvin said Tucson goalie Jaxson Stauber (0-3-1) has also been playing well. He has a 3.88 GAA and a .851 save percentage.

“Staub has been playing really well,” Potvin said. “He’s been playing some really good hockey and we haven’t been able to get him a win.”

Reece returns

Former Roadrunner forward Reece Vitelli returned to Tucson with Manitoba this week.

Vitelli played in 21 games for Tucson in 2022-23 and 2023-24 before moving to the Moose last season. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, he had one shot with no points.