The Tucson Roadrunners return home this weekend with a chance to expand their division lead.
The Roadrunners take on the Ontario Reign on Friday and Saturday night. The Roadrunners are 3-1 against the Reign this season.
Tucson is coming off a successful road trip where it won three straight to catapult the team back to the top of the American Hockey League’s Pacific Division standings.
The Roadrunners have actually posted a better road than home record through the season’s first 28 games, but coach Mike Van Ryn is confident his team can produce in Tucson.
“We haven’t played real well at home lately, as we were battling some illness there,” Van Ryn said. “Everybody’s healthy now and I thought we played three pretty good games (on the road). Things some to be going the right way, and now it’s just trying it that way.”
Van Ryn said there was no difference between the team’s play and preparation on the road versus at home, where the Roadrunners have dropped six of their last seven. Rather, Van Ryn credited the home slate as a streak of tight affairs.
“I thought our guys were still trying to work as hard as they could,” Van Ryn said. “We weren’t feeling all the best so there’s a lot of things all at once. You work through it.”
Tucson enters Friday with a three-game winning streak against the Reign. That includes a 6-1 shelling in Ontario in mid-December and a 2-1 road victory on Dec. 31.
Tucson’s last loss to Ontario came on a night when the Roadrunners were without Dylan Strome, who had been recalled to the Arizona Coyotes.
Strome and fellow former first-rounder Nick Merkley are back in Tucson to lead the front line this weekend, and forward Artur Tyanulin has been reassigned to Fort Wayne of the ECHL. Strome and Merkley have combined for 26 of the team’s 91 goals this season.
Strome said that the team had a good first few practices in the new year.
“Everything’s going good,” he said. “We keep working hard and we’re just trying to put wins together here.”
Strome and Merkley were rewarded for their strong start to the season with all-star selections.
They will join head coach Mike Van Ryn at the All-Star Classic later this month.
“I’m obviously honored,” Van Ryn said. “It’s a team thing. I’m just going there as basically a representative of the team. It’s the work the guys have done and it’s an organizational thing really. Drafting and development in the summer, to the stuff our strength coaches have done with our guys. It’s the guys who have done the work.”
