The San Jose Barracuda celebrate a win over the San Diego Gulls on Friday night Mar 5th at Five Point Arena in San Diego to open up the first of a three game series (photo from @sjbarracuda) 

by Marko Ukalovic

IRVINE, Calif—The San Jose Barracuda were able to do what no other team had been able to do this season. Beat the San Diego Gulls on their home ice.

The ‘Cuda powered their way with a pair of special team goals en route to a 5-1 victory over their Pacific Division rival on Friday evening at FivePoint Arena. San Diego came into the game 7-0-1 on their home away from home.

San Jose (4-3-1-0) dominated for the entire 60 minutes of the game as they had the ice tilted inside the San Diego zone for the majority of the evening.

The ‘Cuda drew first blood when Evan Weinger scored an unassisted goal at the 11:07 mark of the first period. Weinger intercepted a clearing attempt and looked to center a pass from the right wing when it deflected off a Gulls defender and past Gulls goalie Lukas Dostal for his first goal of the season.

San Diego (8-4-0-0) answered back 17 seconds later when on a delayed penalty call to San Jose, Antoine Morand found Andrew Agozzino on the left slot and he snapped home a wrist shot top-shelf past ‘Cuda goalie Alexei Melnichuk for his fourth goal of the season.

Under five minutes later the Barracuda regained the lead on the power play. Jayden Halbgewachs received a pass on the left wing from Robbie Russo and skated in before sniping home a wrist shot past Dostal near post for his first of two goals on the evening at the 15:39 mark.

San Jose closed out the four-goal opening twenty minutes 65 seconds later. Christian Jaros fired a shot from the right point that Karlis Cukste, who made his AHL debut for San Jose, redirected Jaros’s shot past Dostal for his first career goal at the 16:44 mark

Cukste ,whose natural position is a defenseman, was playing forward for the first time.

San Jose out shot San Diego 14-7 at the end of the first period.

In the second period, San Jose once again controlled the play on the ice as they had held San Diego to just one shot on net in the first 15 minutes of the middle frame.

The ‘Cuda scored its second power play goal of the game when Russo blasted a slap shot from the point where Sasha Chmelevski tipped home past Dostal for his first goal of the season at the 10:23 mark. The Long Beach native had just been sent back down to the Barracuda after playing a game with the parent club Sharks two nights ago.

Halbgewachs finished off the scoring with a late goal in the third period. A turnover inside the Gulls zone led to Fredrik Handemark finding Halbgewachs all alone in the left slot, where he snapped home a wrist shot top-shelf far side for his second goal of the game and third of the season at the 14:28 mark.

Melnichuk had a clean game having to only stop 16 of the 17 shots he faced to earn the win. Dostal finished with 27 saves on 32 shots in the losing effort.

GAME NOTES: San Jose was 2-for-4 on the power play. San Diego went 0-for-3.

The Three Stars of the Game were: 1) Halbgewachs 2) Russo (who finished with two assists) 3) Weinger

UP NEXT: San Jose takes on San Diego on Saturday 3/6 at 7:30pm at FivePoint Arena.