photo from sjbarracuda.com

by Marko Ukalovic

The San Jose Barracuda weren’t able to hold on to a one-goal lead in the third period and it ended up burning them as the Stockton Heat rallied with a late third period power play goal that led to a 3-2 shootout victory on Friday evening at Stockton Arena.

It only took 48 seconds for San Jose (4-4-0-0) to draw first blood. Alex True won a battle along the boards and sent a pass behind the net over to Evan Weinger. Weinger than skated out to the right slot and slid a pass over to an incoming Jayden Halbgewachs, who fired a shot top-shelf over the shoulder of Heat goalie Jon Gillies for his second goal of the season. It was the quickest goal the ‘Cuda have score to begin a game.

Stockton (7-1-0-1) scored the equalizer midway through the first period on the power play when Matthew Phillips entered San Jose zone down the right boards. He fed a pass over to Heat captain Byron Froese, who quickly whipped a wrist shot into the back of the net, that surprised Cuda goalie Joesef Kornear, for his fifth goal of the season at the 10:20 mark.

Forese’s goal ended a steak over 170 consecutive minutes for Korenar without allowing goal.

San Jose regained the lead in the second period on the power play. Weinger shot the puck from the left faceoff circle that Gillies kicked over to the right side where Maxim Letunov was at the right place at the right time. Letunov pounced on the loose puck and hammered it home for his third goal of the season at the 12:58 mark. All three of Letunov’s goals have come on the power play, which leads the team.

The Heat wouldn’t go down quietly in the third period. They forced the extra session with their second power play goal of the game. Justin Kirkland skated in from the left shot with a shot that Korenar was able to get a pad on. However, he wasn’t able to freeze the puck as it jumped on to the stick of Ryan Lomberg, who backhanded the puck past Korenar for his fifth goal of the season at the 15:18 mark.

It was a special teams battle and they won that one,” said Cuda head coach Roy Sommer. “We take kind of a bad penalty there with five minutes to go. They (Stockton) have always had a good PP against us. That was the eventual dagger through the heart so-to-speak.”

Neither team generated a good scoring chance in the overtime period with only three shots combined by both teams. In the shootout, all three of Stockton’s shooters scored with Glenn Gawdin credited with the shootout winner.

Gillies finished 30 saves on 32 shots to earn the victory. Korenar made 28 saves on 30 shots in the losing effort.

GAME NOTES: San Jose was 1/8 on the power play. Stockton finished 2/5.

Weingr extended his point streak to four games (2G, 3A) with his first multi-assist game of his career,

UP NEXT: The Barracuda return back home to host the Tucson Roadrunners on Sunday, November 3 at 3:00pm at SAP Center.