On paper, the 2021 American Hockey League Pacific Division playoffs don’t start until Tuesday. That’s when the Tucson Roadrunners will take the ice in Irvine, California, in a do-or-die play-in game that will decide if their season continues for a bit longer — or if they’ll hop back on the bus and head back to Tucson.
In practice, though, the playoff mindset may already be here for the last-place, but still-plenty-alive Roadrunners.
“The biggest thing for us is approaching these as playoff games,” fifth-year Tucson defenseman Jalen Smereck said this week of preparing for the team’s final regular-season series — a 7 p.m. Friday night tilt and 1 p.m. Sunday matchup, both against the Ontario Reign in Tucson Arena. “The play-in is a single-game elimination, so these games (this weekend) are like playoff games, too.
“You want to make sure you’re using these games to get ready and prepare yourself for the play-ins,” Smereck added.
The play-in games are part of this year’s Pacific Division playoff structure. While the Atlantic, North, Canadian and Central Divisions will have their champs crowned by the end of this weekend, the teams in the Pacific elected to have their seasons go on a bit longer.
The Roadrunners (13-19-2-0) enter this weekend’s matchup with the Reign (15-19-4-0) as the division’s seventh-place team. Ontario is sixth. Those teams could flip-flop if Tucson wins both games — one in regulation, the other in any way it comes. Either way, the Roadrunners and Reign join the Colorado Eagles and San Jose Barracuda in a fourth-through-seventh-place mini-tournament starting Tuesday in Irvine.
The winners of Tuesday’s games will play Wednesday, with the winner of that game taking on either the Henderson Silver Knights or Bakersfield Condors — whichever team ends up in first in the Pacific Division standings — in a best-of-three series.
Smereck said that, unlike a typical multi-game playoff series, the one-game playoff doesn’t allow a team to get its bearings. The Roadrunners have to come in firing.
“You want to build the right chemistry, and you want to make sure you bring it,” he said. “You can’t to turn it on too late.”
Smereck, 24, has certainly shown he knows something about turning it on with time to spare. The 6-foot, 190-pound blueliner has been with the Arizona Coyotes’ minor-league system for each of the past five seasons, spending at least part of each campaign with the Roadrunners.
This season, he’s been with Tucson the whole way through, jumping in and out of the Roadrunners’ lineup for the season’s first two months.
After failing to register a single point offensively in his first nine appearances through April 18, he’s appeared in seven of Tucson’s last eight games, registering two goals and four assists.
Those numbers are American Hockey League career-highs for Smereck, who has four goals and 14 points in 66 total games since Tucson’s debut season of 2016-17.
The two goals came just a week ago, in Tucson’s final regular-season road series against the Texas Stars.
Smereck deflected his own offensive giddy-up to his teammates.
“We’re just playing really good hockey right now. It’s the final stretch before the playoffs and we’ve just been really clicking,” he said. “I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to try to get on the score sheet and try to make that right play. I’ve been taking extra reps in practice and bearing down in practice so that when it comes to me during the game, I’m ready to score or make that next play.
“It’s working,” he added, “so I want to stay on that path.”
Roadrunners coach Steve Potvin said Smereck’s recent emergence is typical of this year’s Tucson team.
“It’s kind of like the next man up,” Potvin said. “We had some guys get called up … and that opened up some doors for some of the younger guys to step up and accept a greater role. You’re seeing (rookie forward Ryan MacGregor) on the power play now. (Rookie forward Nate Sucese) has been in and out of that. And Jalen, with (longtime Tucson defenseman Kyle Capobianco) being called up, has been able to get up in the play, on the rush, and every game he’s been able to improve. He’s helping us offensively as well.
“It is a great story,” Potvin added. “Every guy is taking advantage of their opportunity.”
Capobianco, as it turns out, is one of three Roadrunners regulars back in Tucson for this final regular-season weekend. The Coyotes sent Capobianco — Tucson’s career leader in points for a defenseman — back to Tucson ahead of the Ontario series. Joining him are rookies Jan Jenik and Victor Sodorstrom, who both enjoyed a brief NHL test during the Coyotes’ final regular-season series last weekend. Both recorded their first career NHL goals Friday in a 5-2 win over the San Jose Sharks, with Jenik adding his second the next day in a 5-4 win in the Coyotes’ finale.
