By Matthew T.F. Harrington
photo credit: by San Jose Barracuda of Gulls and Barracuda on 12-12-15
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Despite having the advantage of fresh legs, the San Jose Barracuda’s flat start Saturday afternoon against the San Diego Gulls led to a 5-0 loss at the SAP Center. San Diego’s Max Friberg and Mike Sgarbossa had a goal and assist each and Matt Hackett made 32 saves for his first shutout since the 2011-12 season. Barracuda starter Aaron Dell was pulled after allowing 3 goals in the first 6 shots he faced.
“It’s the same (expletive),” said Barracuda coach Roy Sommer. “I don’t know how many out of our first 19, 20 games the first or second shot is going in. Now we’re sitting back going whoa. We’ve got to be better and have better starts.”
“We need some key saves from our goalies,” said Lerg. “It’s not just on them, it’s on us. But that’s one thing, we live or die by our goalies. You’ve seen that in games where we’ve let up a (bad) goal early on and it sucks the life from us.”
Playing in their first game since last Saturday’s 7-6 overtime thriller, the Barracuda (9-9-0-3) found themselves down 3-0 in the opening minutes of play and never recovered. Despite being blanked by Bakersfield 3-0 last night, the Gulls (12-10-0-1) found plenty of offense to distance themselves from San Jose in the standings. San Jose outshot the Gulls 32-26.
“Here’s a team we’re trying to catch,” said Barracuda Roy Sommer. “They played last night. They looked like the fresher team to me.”
Bad puck luck but the Barracuda on their heels early after a harmless play turned into a fluke goal 33 seconds into the game. Gulls forward Max Friberg took a puck from behind the San Jose net and banked it in off Aaron Dell’s body for his 5th goal of the season.
Renowned enforcer Brian McGrattan netted his 4th goal of the season 1:40 later to extend the Gulls lead to 2-0. The Gulls faced little opposition position themselves in the offensive end after Matt Bailey’s drop pass to Shea Theodore from the right face-off dot. Theodore fired a shot that Dell turned aside, but the netfront presence of Kyle Bonis and McGrattan overwhelmed the Barracuda defense. Bonis chipped the rebound to McGrattan for the tap-in tally.
The scuffling start went from bad to worse for the Barracuda 5:42 into the 1st period when again they failed to protect the blue paint. With Barclay Goodrow in the box for tripping, a Gull shot off the crossbar from Nick Ritchie deflect off Dell and into a scrum in front. From there Michael Sgarbossa was able to convert on his 4th goal of the season. Dell was replaced by Troy Grosenick following the third Gulls goal after just 3 saves on 6 shots.
“You can say it’s on him and it’s on us,” said Sommer of his starter. “One of these guys needs to step up.”
After a listless 1st period, the Barracuda upped the energy level in the second period. They managed to maintain possession more frequently in the 2nd, resulting in the better of the scoring opportunities. San Jose did just about everything but score in the period, peppering Gulls netminder Matt Hackett with 14 shots.
“We had some good zone time,” said Sommer. “But we didn’t get anything out of it. We needed to bury them. We had a couple where we had second, third chances and didn’t get it done.”
After replacing Dell with Grosenick, the Barracuda outshot San Diego 22-13. San Diego was also held scoreless in the 2nd.
“I don’t even know if they played in our end that period,” said Lerg. “(Grosenick) made two saves. Other than that, we were all over them. We had some really good chances. It’s frustrating. They’re not going in. That’s part of the game though.”
A quick strike in the 3rd period zapped the momentum from San Jose. On just the second shot of the period, Stefan Noesen netted his first goal of the season, beating Grosenick 59 seconds into the final period. Sgarbossa assisted on the goal. Jiri Sekac, loaned by the Anaheim Ducks to the Gulls on a conditioning stint, added a goal with 7:55 left.
The Gulls weren’t the only team with a skater on a conditioning stint from the parent club. Sharks forward Ben Smith skated with the Barracuda Saturday, forming a line with one-time Shark Bryan Lerg and Jeremy Langlois. Smith was a -3 and managed 2 shots on goal.
“It was nice to be back in a game,” said Smith, who hasn’t played in a game since October 16th. “It was nice to warm up and go out and play. That’s not the way I wanted it to go but that’s my first game in 6 or 7 weeks. I definitely left a lot there to build on.”
Smith’s arrival and a promotion for Ryan Carpenter forced the Barracuda to juggle lines one game after Sommer found magic with a grouping of Barclay Goodrow, Petter Emanuelssson and Carpenter. Micheal Haley took Carpenter’s spot on the line to let Smith skate with Lerg’s line.
“They had a couple bang-bang plays,” said Sommer on his captain’s line. “They had a couple point blankers he stopped.”
“They’re all fast and they all make plays,” added Sommer. “They should be able to get something done at this level.”
San Jose will hope to find some chemistry on the road with a game Sunday afternoon against the Ontario Reign. After that, they’ll travel to San Diego for a tilt with the Gulls Friday night.
“We don’t have a lot of time to think about it,” said Sommer. “We’re facing the best team in the league tomorrow. We better start better than we did tonight.”
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