Winners of three straight and 8 of 11, the Tucson Roadrunners have proven they know a thing or two about hot streaks.
On Friday night, Tucson was on the other side of that coin for a change.
The Bakersfield Condors (23-16-4-2) scored a trio of unanswered goals to erase an early deficit and skate out of Tucson Arena with a 3-1 win over the Roadrunners (23-12-3-1).
The win was Bakersfield’s seventh in a row, and brought the Condors to within a point of Tucson for second place in the American Hockey League’s Pacific Division. Bakersfield has 49 points in 41 games, compared to Tucson’s 50 in 39 games. Division leader San Jose has 53 in 37 games after the Barracuda carded a 4-0 win of their own Friday night.
“We’re clearly aware of what (Bakersfield has) been doing as of late,” Roadrunners head coach Jay Varady said. “We’ve got to create our own luck. They got two bounces tonight and I think that’s directly related to where we put the puck. We put it in bad spots and they were able to create luck and get two.”
The Roadrunners’ lone goal of the night came toward the end of an otherwise scoreless opening frame. With Bakersfield’s William Lagesson retreating slightly with the puck in his own zone, Tucson’s David Ullstrom saw an opportunity and jumped at it as he hit the ice during a line change.
“I came from the change and he’s skating backward and not looking forward, so that’s why I put pressure on him,” Ullstrom said. “He’s looking down at the puck and skating backward. So I kind of saw that. He probably wasn’t going to pass from that position, and I got there in time.”
In time, in this case, meant using not just his stick but also both his skates to help punch the puck away from Lagesson. Ullstrom then fed Giovanni Fiore, who wound up and buried it past Bakersfield goalie Shane Starrett.
“Ully made a good play there. He was able to find my tape,” Fiore said. “I just swung into it.”
But Fiore’s ninth goal of the year — it was his third with Tucson after being traded and joining the Roadrunners four weeks ago to the day — was one of the few bright spots for the home team.
Goaltender Adin Hill’s shutout streak, which lasted parts of four outings and more than 147 minutes of game action, ended when Bakersfield stretched the ice with a long pass from David Gust to Mitch Callahan off the bench-side boards. Callahan collected it and skated downhill toward the Tucson net before beating Hill less than four minutes into the second period.
Bakersfield took the lead less than three minutes later on a goal by Patrick Russell, and by Josh Currie capped the scoring halfway through the third period on a blast inside the point on Hill’s glove side. Friday marked the seventh straight game that Currie scored a goal for the Condors, and his eighth over Bakersfield’s last 10 games.
Fiore acknowledged that Tucson had the upper hand early on.
"We started off the game really hot and we weren’t able to maintain it for 60 minutes. We pushed for quite a bit, but we’ve just got to push harder (Saturday),” he said of the quick turnaround, set for 3 p.m. at Tucson Arena.
Ullstrom cited the middle frame as the culprit in changing Tucson’s fortunes.
“The second period killed us,” he said. “They got a lot more bounces, a lot more (offensive) zone time than the first and the third period, so we’ve got to clean up the second period.”
Saturday’s afternoon matchup concludes the Roadrunners’ stretch of six games in nine days heading into Sunday and Monday’s AHL All-Star Classic festivities in Springfield, Massachusetts. Tucson defenseman Kyle Capobianco will make his second All-Star appearance while forward Michael Bunting was named a late addition to the Pacific Division roster just this week.
The first 1,500 fans through the Tucson Arena gates Saturday afternoon will receive a free superhero-esque bobblehead of Dusty, the Roadrunners mascot.
