GAMEDAY: BARRACUDA AT ROADRUNNERS
Dec 11, 2017
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Tonight’s Matchup: On Tuesday, the San Jose Barracuda and Tucson Roadrunners meet for the second time this season and the first in the Old Pueblo. San Jose fell 3-1 to the ‘Runners at SAP Center last Friday after allowing a pair of goals with less than two minutes remaining in regulation. San Jose went 3-0-0-1 at the Tucson Convention Center a season ago and are now 5-2-1-1 against the Arizona Coyotes top affiliate all time.
Blue-Line Bulster: 15-year NHL veteran Paul Martin was assigned to the Barracuda on Sunday for conditioning and will make his minor league debut on Tuesday. Martin has skated in 859 games in the NHL career with New Jersey, Pittsburgh, and San Jose. Martin has appeared in just three games with the Sharks this season due to injury but is scheduled to be in the lineup for the Barracuda in their next four games on a conditioning assignment.
700 For Sommer: San Jose Barracuda Head Coach and Bay Area native Roy Sommer collected his 700th AHL win of his career on on Dec. 3 at Bakersfield, 2-1. Sommer is the first coach in the 82-year history of the American Hockey League to reach 700 coaching wins. In 2015-16, Sommer surpassed Fred “Bun” Cook as the AHL’s all-time leader in wins and collected his first A.R. Pieri Memorial Award as AHL Coach of the Year in 2016-17. Sommer, who’s in his AHL record 20th season behind the bench for the top affiliate of the San Jose Sharks, coached his 1,500th game in the AHL last Friday.
Offensive Options: A season ago Danny O’Regan paced one of the AHL’s most explosive offenses in scoring, resulting in the Red Garrett Memorial Award as the AHL’s Rookie of the Year. The Sharks reassigned O’Regan back to the Barracuda last Thursday after skating in eight games with the Sharks, tallying four assists. Despite playing in just 13 games in the AHL this season, O’Regan leads the Barracuda in goals (6) and ranks third in points (12).
Cuda Call Up: Seven players from the Barracuda’s 2017 Calder Cup playoff roster are now on the San Jose Sharks (Marcus Sorensen, Joakim Ryan, Tim Heed, Barclay Goodrow, Timo Meier, Kevin Labanc and Ryan Carpenter). A season ago the Barracuda finished with the Western Conference’s best regular season winning percentage (.699) and advanced to the Conference Finals before being eliminated by the Grand Rapids Griffins in five games.