by Marko Ukalovic

SAN JOSE, Calif—Fourth time’s a charm.

The San Jose Barracuda came back to from a two-goal deficit to score four unanswered goals, including two from Maxim Letunov, en route to its first win of the season over the Henderson Silver Knights in a 4-2 victory on Wednesday evening at Solar4America Ice.

San Jose split the two games series and were 0-2-1 against Henderson, who suffered its fifth loss of the season. The Barracuda improved to 22 points and sit in the fourth spot in the Pacific Division, with a .524 winning percentage.

Henderson (18-5-0-0) drew first blood in the first period. Reid Duke intercepted a pass at the Silver Knights blueline. Duke raced down the left wing and sent a rink wide pass over to Dylan Sikura who snapped home a wrist shot past ‘Cuda goalie Josef Korenar for his team leading 11th goal of the season at the 6:55 mark.

There was no love lost between the two teams as Jacob Middleton and Jermaine Loewen exchanged fisticuffs at the 2:41 mark as the bad blood carried over from last night’s game.

San Jose (8-7-4-2) out shot Henderson 10-6 in the opening 20 minutes.

The Silver Knights doubled its lead on the power play late in the second period. Jack Duggan sent in a shot from the left slot and Ben Jones tipped the puck past Korenar for his for his sixth goal of the season at the 14:56 mark. Ryan Murphy was credited with the secondary assist.

The ‘Cuda finally figured out a way to put a puck past Silver Knights goalie Logan Thompson as they cut the lead in half with 33 second lefts in the middle frame.

Nicolas Meloche sent in a shot in from the point where Evan Weinger quickly found Letunov out in front of the crease. Letunov jammed home the puck past an unsuspecting Thompson for his first goal of the contest and fourth of the season.

San Jose scored the equalizer on a counter attack. Meloche skated into the Silver Knights zone, made a drop pass to Sasha Chmelevski who used Meloche as screen to beat Thompson with a wrist shot to the far side for his third goal of the season at the 11:40 mark. Meloche finished with two assists on the evening.

The Barracuda gained its first lead of the game on the power play just over three minute later. Chmelevski sent in a shot from the right slot that Thompson couldn’t corral. Letunov crashed the net and cleaned up the rebound off for his second goal of the game and fifth of the season at the 14:55 mark.

Letunov is starting to heat up for San Jose with three goals in as many games.

The ‘Cuda iced the game with an empty netter from Stefan Noesen at the 18:39 mark. Korenar received the only assist on Noesen’s second goal of the season.

Korenar finished the game with 20 saves on 22 shots to earn the victory. Thompson had an eventful night stopping 39 of the 42 shots the ‘Cuda peppered him throughout the game. Thompson’s four-game winning streak also came to an end.

GAME NOTES: San Jose went 1-for-2 on the power play. Henderson was 1-for-1.

Henderson lost for the first time this season after leading after the second period (13-1).

The Three Stars of the Game were: 1) Letunov 2) Chmelevski 3) Meloche

UP NEXT: The Barracuda travel down to Bakersfield to take on the Condors on Saturday 4/10 at 6:00pm at Mechanics Bank Arena.