The Tucson Roadrunners are winning games, all right — so many of late that with just four to play, they’ve retaken control of their own destiny in their quest for an American Hockey League Calder Cup postseason berth.
That the Roadrunners are winning games at this point in the season is, of course, key to their playoff chances. But it’s how they’re winning those games that’s added a little more zest to the club’s relatively remarkable turnaround.
“At this time of year it’s not how you do it, it’s just getting it done that matters,” forward Michael Chaput told the Roadrunners’ in-house media unit earlier this week after the first of two wins on the road against the Iowa Wild — a 5-4 win after leading 5-1 heading into the third period.
The next night, on Wednesday, the Roadrunners rebounded from a 3-1 deficit to tie the game in regulation and ultimately win 4-3 in overtime. Defenseman Jordan Gross said afterward “we weren’t panicking at all. … We’ve got a lot of good players and resiliency in our locker room.”
Resiliency, by definition, might just be the word for it after all. That win Wednesday was hardly the only time the Roadrunners have had to rely on come-from-behind or late-game dramatics. The Roadrunners are winners of eight of their last 10 games, following a stretch where they won just twice in 16 outings as they fell as far as 11 points out of a playoff berth.
A March 29 home game against Colorado saw Tucson down 3-1 early in the third, before climbing back and forcing overtime. The Roadrunners would lose 4-3 in the extra frame, but Nick Merkley’s hat trick still gave them a much-needed point in the standings.
The week prior, Tucson opened a two-game set at home against San Jose with a 3-2 overtime win in which forward Lane Pederson scored all three Roadrunner goals; that included the winner exactly a minute on the nose into the extra period. The wackiness continued the night after, when Michael Bunting took an outlet pass against the Barracuda and buried the puck home with 10 seconds left on the clock in regulation for a Tucson win.
After that 16-game stretch saw Tucson lose its fair share of close one- and two-goal games, defenseman and captain Dakota Mermis doesn’t feel bad being on the other end of things now.
“I don’t know if there’s been anything specific (that’s turned the tide),” Mermis said during a call from the road in Southern California, where the Roadrunners (33-23-5-3) prepared for Sunday’s 3 p.m. matchup with the Ontario Reign (23-31-6-4).
“A lot of it is just desperation … being a little more desperate, but still relying on the same system we’ve been playing in all year. It’s kind of a weird thing, but we were playing the same way the whole time, even though we were losing. But we were trying to figure out how to do it better, and luckily we were able to turn it around.”
With four games left — all against Pacific Division opponents — Mermis reiterated that the margin of error is virtually nil at this point.
“We’ve been able to ride that momentum and the confidence that comes with that,” Mermis said. “We don’t plan to slow that down.”
