Players from the Tucson Roadrunners huddle up to celebrate Aku Raty second period goal against the San Jose Barracuda on Friday APR 19, 2024. (Tucson Roadrunners)

by Marko Ukalovic

The Tucson Roadrunners scored five unanswered goals, including four in the third period, after the first period in a 5-1 convincing win over the San Jose Barracuda in both team’s penultimate game on Friday evening at Tucson Convention Center Arena.

San Jose has lost two games in a row after winning two in a row with one more game left in the regular season. Tucson has won a season best six games in a row as they battle the Ontario Reign for second place in the Pacific Division with the Roadrunners with a 91-89 edge in points.

The Barracuda (23-34-10-4) drew first blood late in the first period with an even strength goal. Tristen Robins won a battle along the boards. Robins centered the puck back to Scott Sabourin, who had just come on to the ice on a line change, who fired a wrist shot past Roadrunners goalie Matthew Villalta for his 18th goal of the season at the 15:36 mark.

San Jose out shot Tucson 7-4 in the opening frame that didn’t feature many good scoring chances by both teams.

Tucson (43-23-3-2) scored the only goal of the second period while on the man advantage. Aku Raty picked up a loose puck after a scramble in front of the crease. Raty beat ‘Cuda goalie Magnus Chrona with a snipe top shelf to the short side for his 15th goal of the season at the 3:42 mark.

The Roadrunners scored four unanswered even strength goals in the third period in the final 5:12 of the final frame. First at the 14:48 mark, Max Szuber cleaned up the rebound of a Hunter Drew shots into an empty net for his seventh goal of the season.

Tucson scored 53 seconds later to go up 3-0. Austin Poganski centered the puck from behind the net out to Cameron Hebig between the face off circles. Hebig’s one-timer beat Chrona to the far side for his 12th goal of the season.

Nathan Smith scored an empty net goal at the 17:54 mark, when the ‘Cuda pulled Chrona for an extra attacker, for his 1tth goal of the season.

Ben McCartney completed the scoring with his sixth goal of the season with 40 seconds left in the game. Szuber found McCartney in the left wing. The Tucson center skated back into the middle before roofing a backhander past Chrona for his sixth goal of the season.

Villalta (31-17-3-3) finished the game stopping 19 of the 20 shots he faced to earn his 31st win of the season. Chrona (6-17-6) made 30 saves on 34 shots in the losing effort.

GAME NOTES: San Jose finished 0-for-1 on the power play. Tucson was 1-for-4.

The Three Stars of the Game: 1) Szuber 2) Poganski 3) Smith.

UP NEXT: Both teams conclude their two-game series and their regular season finales on Saturday 4/20 at 7:00pm at Tucson Convention Center Arena.