Buckle up, hockey fans.
If the rest of the Tucson Roadrunners schedule is anything like their season opener Saturday night, this year is going to be one wild — but fun — ride.
Tucson gave up two goals in the first seven minutes against the visiting San Diego Gulls, and trailed 4-2 entering the third period. But the American Hockey League’s defending Pacific Division and Western Conference regular season champs erupted for a four-goal final frame to defeat their counterparts from down Interstate 8, 6-4, on opening night of the 2018-19 season at the Tucson Arena.
“I think it was fantastic for the guys who put in all the effort and won the championship banners last year to have that,” Tucson coach Jay Varady said of the both the pre-game championship banner-hanging ceremony turnout and the raucous home crowd — all on a night when the Roadrunners’ schedule went square up against a University of Arizona football home game exactly two miles up the road.
Roadrunners left wing Adam Helewka celebrates scoring what proved to be the game-winning goal in the third period.
Still, the Tucson Arena attendance count topped 6,300.
Tucson outshot San Diego 44-20, likely giving the Roadrunners the belief that at some point, eventually, even when trailing, shots were going to fall.
And in that third period, boy did they fall.
Tucson’s stat line was a mishmash of usual suspects — including Michael Bunting, the Roadrunners’ leading returning scorer from last year who knocked in the insurance goal on the power play with inside five minutes to play — newcomers and guys who might not necessarily have been expected to provide so much offensive firepower.
But don’t suggest the latter to Varady, coaching his first game with Tucson and first at the AHL level.
“Who’s to say he won’t be?” Varady said of the possibility of Jens Looke become a scoring leader for Tucson.
Looke, the second-year Roadrunner who scored six goals in 59 games a season ago, kept the game within reach with a pair of first-period goals.
“I think each year brings new opportunities for people,” the coach added. “Whatever the case may be, he took the opportunity tonight.”
Looke’s night ended when he suffered an upper body injury in the second period, but his teammates were more than equipped to pick up the slack.
With Tucson trailing by a pair entering the third, Adam Helewka, in his first season with Tucson after playing parts of the last three with the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda, cut the lead to 4-3.
Left wing Michael Bunting watches his shot through traffic sail past Gulls goalie Jared Coreau for Tucson’s sixth goal.
Some eight minutes later, Helewka saw the puck on his stick again, this time blasting a one-timer from the right point that was initially stopped by Gulls goalie Jared Coreau but trickled past to tie things up.
“It was tons of fun. It’s always a grind every game no matter who you’re playing,” Helewka said of his first night in a Roadrunners sweater. “But we embrace that grind, and we came out on top. It was a hell of a lot of fun.”
After that, it was Matteo Gennaro, not only in his first game with Tucson but his first as a pro at any level, going stick side top shelf on Coreau with a right-side slapshot less than 45 seconds later to put the Roadrunners up for the first time, and for good.
“It was a pretty wild night,” Gennaro said of his first pro outing, and the team’s first game of the year. “I think you’re beginning to see what is a big rivalry between these two teams.”
Gennaro may be right. These two teams have most of the week off before sparring again Friday and Saturday — this time in San Diego.
