Admirals sink Roadrunners' comeback bid; Tucson's season-worst losing streak now at seven

Another slow start and a couple of empty net goals sunk the Tucson Roadrunners’ bid to end their seven game losing streak.

The visiting Milwaukee Admirals (21-11-0-2) picked up the series sweep on the road against the Roadrunners (14-16-4-0) with a 6-3 win on Wednesday night.

With a couple goals in the third, Tucson rallied to within one goal until the Admirals notched a pair of empty net goals — one from nearly the entire length of the ice — to clinch it.

Roadrunners captain Adam Cracknell said the third period was the game they needed the whole time.

“Losing’s getting really old right now,” Cracknell said. “We gotta find a way. I mean seven in a row?

“It’s hard. I think we do it to ourselves. If it’s not penalties it’s not picking up men, being in the wrong spots, wrong time. We gave them too many odd man rushes and a team like that they thrive on it.”

Tucson Goalie David Tendeck got his first American Hockey League start of the season, making 32 saves.

“Tendeck came out and had a good game for us, made some big saves,” said Tucson head coach Steve Potvin. “Unfortunately again, the same story goes, we’ve fallen into penalty trouble and unfortunately it just puts too much stress on our team.”

Tendeck played four games last year for the Roadrunners spending most of the season and 2020-21 with Tucson's ECHL affiliate at the time, the Rapid City Rush. This season Tendeck is 9-6-1-0 with 0.901 save percentage with the Roadrunners' current ECHL side, the Atlanta Gladiators.

Not unlike Milwaukee's 7-5 win Tuesday night in Tucson Arena, the Admirals struck first again Wednesday when center Jachym Kondelik scored a goal at 11:36 in the first.

At 13:18 in the first, Milwaukee right wing Kiefer Sherwood scored their second goal.

Tucson got on the board with 2:35 left in the first when forward Hudson Elynuik scored. Cracknell and Michael Carcone were credited with assists.

Milwaukee out shot Tucson 38-30. The Admirals were 1-for-6 on the power play while Tucson was 0-for-2.

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After the Admirals added two goals in the second, Cracknell lit the lamp 46 seconds into he third to cut the deficit to two. Defenseman Will Reilly and Carcone provided assists.

About six minutes later, Cracknell scored again, with assists from defenseman Vladislav Kolyachonok and Carcone.

After Cracknell missed about two and a half weeks to injury in December and January, he tallied five points in the Milwaukee series.

“You want to contribute but you also want to contribute to wins too. You want to be able to solve this thing together,” Cracknell said. “It’s nice to be in the mix with the guys and be able to compete with them but right now we’re just looking at wins. It doesn’t matter who scores or what we need to do. It doesn’t matter about success for individuals, we need wins as a team right now.”

With a minute and three seconds left Ads right wing Markus Nurmi scored another Milwaukee empty net goal. It was his second goal of the game.

Then with 15 seconds left center Zach Sanford added another empty net goal for for the Admirals.

Up next for the Roadrunners is a trip to Bakersfield to face the Condors (12-19-1-0) on Saturday night. Tucson’s next home game is Jan. 20, also against Bakersfield.

Saturday’s game starts a three-game road trip for Tucson, who went 0-4-0-0 on this home stand.

“It’s a tough stretch right now, we understand that but we need to really figure it out,” Cracknell said. “As a group and individuals we need to demand more of ourselves.”

Slap shots

Despite losing 6-3, two Roadrunners (Cracknell and Carcone) were among the AHL’s three stars of the game. Both had three points.

Carcone, named an AHL all-star for the first time earlier Wednesday, increased his league-lead in points to 48 through 29 games played. Next closest is Matthew Phillips of the Calgary Wranglers with 40 points.