Roadrunners planning on remaining AHL team for years

The Arizona Coyotes’ land auction won’t affect the Tucson Roadrunners local officials said — on Thursday.

On Friday, the day after the Roadrunners held a morning press conference about their deal to stay in Tucson, the Arizona State Land Department canceled a land auction that the NHL’s Coyotes hope to use to acquire land for an arena. In April, the Coyotes sold their franchise rights and personnel to the Smith Entertainment Group with the option to reactivate if they have a new NHL-caliber arena within five years.

ASLD canceled the auction until the Coyotes can obtain a special-use permit.

In the sale of what would become Utah Hockey Club, the Coyotes retained ownership of the AHL’s Roadrunners.

“After over a year of planning and meeting every obligation required under Arizona law, the Arizona State Land Department unilaterally canceled the auction that was scheduled to occur on June 27 for the site that has been identified as the future home of the Arizona Coyotes,” the Coyotes said in a release. “This unprecedented action by the State of Arizona seriously jeopardizes the future of NHL hockey returning to the desert.”

On Thursday, local officials didn’t think the land auction would affect the Roadrunners much.

“We tried to separate that here because obviously we can’t control that,” said Rio Nuevo board chairman Fletcher McCusker. “We did encourage the city and the team to extend their lease, so that the Roadrunners’ lease was going to term out in two years. We’ve actually now increased that to three more years. I think we were able to give and take with the team, so they made a longer-term commitment to us and whatever happens up there there’s gonna need to be a farm team, we want it to be the Roadrunners.”

Roadrunners president Bob Hoffman said until an arena is built, it gives the Roadrunners an opportunity “to plant that flag all the way from Flagstaff all the way down to the border.”

“How that impacts the Roadrunners really over the next handful of years is that facility is gonna to take some time to be built once the auction’s won,” Hoffman said. “How that impacts the Roadrunners is very minimal.”

Utah re-signs two Roadrunners

Although the NHL and AHL seasons aren’t over yet, Utah HC signed a pair of 2023-24 Roadrunners last week.

First, Utah HC signed goalie Matt Villalta to a two-year, two-way contract. Last season for the Roadrunners, Villalta went 31-17-3 was named an AHL All-Star. He also made his NHL debut.

“I don’t think you can really have a strong culture without goaltending,” said Tucson head coach Steve Potvin. “When your goaltender’s able to make a save in a game that may have been able to go either way and the next day you come to practice and you came out with a win you come out with some intensity and some passion for growth.”

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Thursday afternoon, Utah HC signed defenseman Patrik Koch to a one-year, two-way contract.

Koch played 63 games for the Roadrunners last season and one in the NHL. Then, he played in eight games for Slovakia at the 2024 World Championship.

Record-breaking season

Tucson finished the season as the AHL’s most improved team from 2022-23, with differentials of plus-23 points, plus-13-wins and a plus-.160-winning percentage. The Roadrunners won 43 games and earned 92 points, both team records.

Tucson led the league in most players called up to the NHL, with 19.

At the gate, Tucson had a 14% year-over-year attendance increase from the year before, fifth-highest in the AHL, averaging 4,191, less than 200 away from the team attendance record set in 2018-19.

Tucson averaged a team-record 5,001 fans during the playoffs.

“AHL pro hockey has been in Tucson for eight years and one month; during that time, the Roadrunners brand has become synonymous with Tucson,” said TCC General Manager Glenn Grabski. “This team is part of Tucson, they’re part of this community. I’m looking forward to our one-millionth fan this next year.”

Back the Pac

It’s not just the NHL playoffs stretching into late June; the AHL’s Calder Cup Finals are still going.

Heading into Monday’s Game 6, the Hershey Bears lead the Coachella Valley Firebirds 3-2 in the best-of-seven championship series. The Firebirds hail from Tucson’s Pacific Division.

“Of course they’re from the Pacific so we root for them,” Potvin said, “but for us it’s just trying to absorb as much information as we can watching the Stanley Cup playoffs and watching what the teams do in the AHL to get to that next level and so we want to try and learn from our own experience and obviously take from their’s.”

Tucson won the season series against CV, 4-3-0-1.