If the Tucson Roadrunners somehow manage to go on another postseason run this year, it wouldn’t be surprising if coaches and players look back at this point in the season as the crescendo.
“I would say we’re doing well,” forward Adam Helewka said of the Roadrunners’ play so far, now that they’ve hit the halfway point of the their 68-game regular season slate.
“But we’ve got a lot more to give and a lot we can get better at, which is really exciting.”
Sure, the likelihood of the Roadrunners reaching the American Hockey League postseason is as good as virtually anyone in the 31-team league. Their 3-2 come-from-behind home win last Saturday against the high-scoring Chicago Wolves pushed Tucson to the AHL’s third-best record as the season’s first half came to an end. The Roadrunners’ 44 points in the standings (on a 20-10-3-1 record) is one point ahead of last year’s pace, which saw Tucson finish with the top mark in both the AHL’s Pacific Division and the Western Conference.
“You know what, I think we’ve been able to survive,” said Tucson head coach Jay Varady of how he views the season’s first half. “We’ve had lots of things happen, injuries, call-ups, things of that nature … we just keep clawing our way through whatever is coming at us, and have a really good attitude about it.”
That brings it all back to right now, this weekend.
Friday night’s game against the Eagles in Loveland, Colorado, kicks off Tucson’s busiest stretch of the season to date. The Roadrunners play six games in nine days — that includes four at home, beginning with a rare afternoon tilt on the Monday holiday.
The team will play again Wednesday night, next Friday night and next Saturday afternoon.
And only then, it could be argued, that the schedule gets even tougher. The Roadrunners will be out of town for almost three full weeks with Tucson Arena serving as a significant host site for the popular Tucson Gem and Mineral Show.
The Roadrunners will travel to four different cities, starting with Rockford, Illinois; and then San Jose, California; Cedar Park, Texas; and San Diego.
Varady’s point about the roster movement, largely due to seemingly one National Hockey League call-up after another, comes full circle now, too.
Tucson’s roster may be at its most stable point since mid-November. Goaltender Adin Hill makes his return this weekend after nearly two months with the NHL’s Coyotes, and Michael Bunting, who also spent a month or so at the major-league club, returned last weekend and played a key role late in the win over Chicago.
“I just think we go about our business the same every day regardless of what’s happening. It’s something we started the season with — that our mindset and approach is going to be same regardless of what the lineup or what the situation is,” Varady said.
Change, the coach added, “is really kind of just the norm around here.”
The other norm, at least for the Roadrunners this season and last, is winning games. But Helewka, Tucson’s leading goal scorer so far with 11, made it clear the players aren’t getting complacent with that.
“We’re sitting well in the standings, but if we can clean a few things up, then who knows what can happen for us?” he said. “We might be able to make a long run.”
