Photo courtesy of San Jose Barracuda Twitter. William Eklund stick-handles in front of a Firebirds defender.

By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)

SAN JOSE – In the second of back to backs against the Firebirds on home ice the Barracuda one again turned in a disappointing performance this time losing 4-1.

It was a quick start compared to yesterday’s game between these two teams as just 44 seconds in Ryker Evans took a holding penalty putting San Jose on the power play.

The power play however did not go to plan as shorthanded Jimmy Schuldt scored his fourth of the season putting the Firebirds on the board.

For San Jose the power play continued to struggle going 0/3 in the first though no more shorthanded goals were scored.

At the 9:59 mark Kole Lind extended Coachella Valley’s lead to two scoring his 14th goal of the season with no assists on the play.

That ended up being all the scoring in the first with the shots favoring San Jose at 14-9.

The following period saw San Jose’s power play unit get another chance as Kole Lind was sent to the box for slashing.

This time on a beautiful passing play Thomas Bordeleau scored his 15th goal of the season on the power play as Danil Gushchin and William Eklund assisted on the goal.

The rest of the period played out closely with neither team pulling away offensively and so the score finished at the end of the second 2-1.

The shots at the end of the second still favored San Jose at 24-17.

Unlike the first two period the third period ended up being a penalty fest as in total 11 penalties were called.

On one of these penalties the Firebirds responded as Max McCormick scored his 12th goal of the season. Both Brogan Rafferty and Cameron Hughes assisted on the goal.

Coachella Valley looking to pull away got another goal this time it was Evans scoring his second of the game. Tye Kartye and Alexander True both assisted on the goal.

The score now becoming out of reach 15:12 into the third Patrick Sieloff took a boarding penalty as well as receiving a game misconduct and penalty for abuse of an official.

With that play the game was essentially over as the Barracuda had to spend the rest of the game killing off Sieloff’s penalties.

The shots at the end of the game favored the Barracuda at 31-30.

The three stars of the game were: 1st: Jimmy Schuldt 2nd: Thomas Bordeleau 3rd: Joey Daccord

San Jose’s next game will be Wednesday at home at 7 p.m. against the Henderson Silver Knights.