San Jose, California. After stringing together two straight wins including one against these same Barracuda, the San Diego Gulls hoped to keep the wins coming as they traveled north to face their most frequent match-up thus far this season.
With excess personnel the lines were switched up again as the Coaches fought to keep chemistry active during the win streak. Nico Myatovic stayed on the top line with James Hamblin and Matthew Phillips. Whilst Anton Wahlberg slotted in on the second line with Lucas Pettersson and Nathan Gaucher. Drew Elliott drew back in and joined the third line with Captain Ryan Carpenter and Coulson Pitrre. Yegor Sidorov, Ethan Procyszyn and Sean Farrell made up the fourth line.
Defensive pairings remained largely the same with Travis Howe continuing his now less than temporary position switch from forward to defense.
Tomas Suchanek was given the start with Damian Clara backing up.
First Period:
With so many meetings between the two squads over such a short period it felt that some amount of physicality would be inevitable and after some initial back and forth in scoring chances a huge hit on Matthew Phillips by the Barracudas Tomas Messineo led to Nico Myatovic dropping the gloves to respond for his team-mate.
An offensive zone face-off led to the games first goal as Tye Felhaber sent a seeing-eye shot that beat Suchanek through traffic. 1-0 Barrauda.
San Diego needed to respond and held possession as well as the majority of the chances for the next six or so minutes after the lengthy delay following the goal due to it being Teddy Bear Toss night in San Jose. Generating chances across all four lines they kept the pressure on whilst getting some good defensive work from all pairings but in particular the very active Travis Howe.
The Barracuda managed to stem momentum for a short period with some cycling in the Gulls zone via their top line but San Diego stayed firm in shutting down any would be opportunities by ensuring no open passing lanes.
It was all Gulls for the remaining few minutes including a great rush chance as Yegor Sidorov received a blind pass and made a move across the San Jose net but was tripped before he could finish. He looked to be asking for a call but none came.
The Gulls down 1-0 after the first set of twenty but looking the more likely team – leading in shots 11-8 and the shot map showing the Gulls dominance in front of the San Jose net.
Second Period: San Jose Barracuda 1 – San Diego Gulls 0
San Jose started the period by putting the Gulls under all sorts of pressure and felt like perhaps a 2-0 deficit might be inevitable but a nice breakout that became a two on one rush lead by Sean Farrell ended in Ethan Procyszyn getting his first AHL goal as he received the pass on the right boards and fired a laser that beat San Jose goaltender Eric Comrie. 1-1 tie game.
Immediately following the goal Ethan Procsyszyn tried to beat his defender one on one but was clearly interfered with in the process – drawing a call – that was immediately nullified when Jet Woo came to his aid after he finished his check on the play and a San Jose player approached in response.
The four on four action was frenetic with back and forth open ice chances for both sides but as play returned to five on five the Gulls snatched momentum and took the lead as Yegor Sidorov made a great play to gain the zone, hold possession and spot three Gulls crashing the San Jose net. His smart shot from near the top of the zone was then finished by Stian Soberg. 2-1 Gulls.
The good times continued as the Gulls all of a sudden became an unstoppable wall. Lucas Pettersson found himself setup for a good chance in front of the San Jose net only to have the stick slashed out of his hands with no call but on the follow up the puck found its way to Anton Wahlberg at the left circle through some nice passing in the San Jose zone and the big Swedish Center made no mistake. 3-1 Gulls.
The Barracuda managed to halt the momentum by countering with some zone time in the San Diego zone but as play went the other way things got physical once again and altercation behind the San Jose net saw James Hamblin and Philip Sinn exchange shoves and headlocks with only Hamblin being assessed the penalty to put the Gulls on the penalty kill.
Nico Myatovic showed some more of that NHL speed and skill as he casually stripped the San Jose defense at the blue line to start a two on one rush as he outpaced the defender he had stripped the puck from, looked off his passing option and with a sudden bout of acceleration skated in on the San Jose net to beat the goaltender with an easy backhand move. 4-1 Gulls.
San Jose responded right away. Gaining the Gulls zone on the rush and using the extra man on the Power Play to outnumber the slot and beat Suchanek with a perfect shot. 4-2 Gulls.
Time sped swiftly by for the remainder of the high scoring period and the horn sounded to see the Gulls head to the second intermission up 4-2 after forty minutes and in the drivers seat. Shots were 12-8 Gulls on the period and 23-16 overall.
Third Period: San Diego Gulls 4 – San Jose Barracuda 2
It wasn’t a great start to the third as the Barracuda pressured early and an ill advised pass from Nico Myatovic to Travis Howe in front of the Gulls net was picked off and whipped passed Suchanek all in one motion by Luca Cagnoni. 4-3 Gulls.
Things went from bad to worse as Corey Schunemann fanned on a pass in his own zone and was then found guilty of tripping as he tried to recover. The Gulls held their own on the kill but with sixteen seconds left they could not get a clear and a perfect lane opened for the Barracuda to beat Suchanek with a hard shot. 4-4 tie game.
The intensity ramped up and a playoff like atmosphere took over as the Barracuda smelled blood whilst the Gulls were clearly overwhelmed and out of sorts. Forgetting how to play defense or mark their man entirely.
Just as the Gulls seemed to be calming things down – Tomas Suchanek skated behind the net to get a loose puck and fell as he did. With players quickly converging on him he opted to cover the puck and was assessed a delay of game penalty, sending the Gulls to the penalty kill with five minutes left and the Barracuda in a growing frenzy.
San Jose made quick work of the easy Power Play afforded to them and took the lead 5-4 off the face-off.
With just over two minutes left in the period the Gulls pulled Suchanek for the extra attacker and as Matthew Phillips fought to get to the front of the net he was slashed and the Officials finally deemed it worthy of awarding San Diego their first official Power Play of the game.
But the Gulls man advantage effort was largely just as disjointed as their third period and they could not find a tying goal.
San Diego relinquishing a 4-2 lead to go down 5-4.
Post Game Notes:
What Was That
With almost three wins in a row the Gulls are suddenly in the upper half of the division for the first time in years. Currently sitting in fourth by points percentage and a 7-6-3-0 record through 16 games. It is the perfect time to put the wins on the board as they face opponents with lesser records, the Condors are up next (4-7-1-1) followed by a visit from the Iowa Wild (6-9-2-1) before they face the Ontario Reign (6-7-1-0) and a tough test from the Colorado Eagles (8-6-1-1) to finish the month. They need to bounce back from this horrible third period performance to put some more wins together if they want to stay in the top half of the division.
The Laurent Brossoit In The Room
Laurent Brossoit was sent back to San Diego on Friday despite going 4-1-0 with the Ducks Equally as baffling as his call-up, he was sent down but only because he was the only goaltender that was waiver exempt and that status of which was quickly running out the longer he stayed up or the more games he played in a Ducks uniform. It now means the Gulls are carrying three goaltenders and like the Ducks they too will need to shed one soon. Given Clara and then Suchanek were given the starts for these last two I would assume Suchanek – because of how things went in this game – will be the one sent back to Tulsa.
I feel bad for him because I love the kid but he cant be making egregious mistakes like he did in today’s game – with falling behind his net and then covering the puck for the delay of game penalty.
Leading The Way
A quick look at the scoring stats and Anton Wahlberg is still the Gulls leading scorer, compiling 15 points in 16 games. His fellow countrymen and roommate Lucas Pettersson is second with 11 points in 15 games. Matthew Phillips and Stian Solberg round out the rest of the top four with 10 points each.
It has taken a while for some of the more expected names to start to put up number but they seem to be finding their way recently. Sean Farrell now has 5 points in 15 games after getting a goal in the game before and assisting on Proczysyns first pro goal today. Yegor Sidorov is still somewhat snake bit but looked a lot better today – setting up the play that led to the Solberg goal.
Everything seems to be coming together – the team just need to tighten up defensively under pressure to protect a lead.
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