By Ryan Carlson
The San Jose Barracuda had a 1 percent chance of making the playoffs on April 1, but the stars aligned and the gritty bunch punched their ticket to the Calder Cup playoffs for a third straight season.
Going a perfect 5-0 in the month of April, the Barracuda secured the last seed in the playoffs to match up against the No. 1 seed in the Pacific Division, the Tucson Roadrunners, where they fell in game 1, 4-2.
In the first period, the Barracuda doubled the shots of the Roadrunners 10-5, but found themselves trailing by one goal.
With 8:56 left in the first period, defenseman Dakota Mermis scored the franchise’s first ever playoff goal by going top-shelf on Barracuda goalie Antoine Bibeau.
That gave the Roadrunners momentum heading into the second period.
The second period, the Barracuda had a frenzy of shots and chances as they outshot Tucson 22-6, lifting the total shot count 32-11 in favor of San Jose.
‘Cuda forward Alex True scored the team’s first playoff goal as he tipped a shot from defenseman Tim Heed to tie the game 1-1.
“Good play by Helewka on the half-wall getting up to Heeder who made a great shot to the net and it landed on my stick so it was a pretty easy tap in,” True said.
Exactly 23 seconds after True’s goal, Tucson forward Ryan MacInnis put a rebound past Bibeau to take back the one-goal lead.
At the end of the second frame, the Roadrunners maintained a one-goal lead.
Five minutes into the final period, San Jose center Sasha Chmelevski deflected a shot behind Tucson goalie Hill to tie the game at two.
With a 1:15 left in the third period Roadrunners forward Lane Pederson scored the go-ahead goal for Tucson. Then with 13 seconds left, the third overall draft pick in the 2015 NHL draft Dylan Strome slapped in an empty netter.
Game 2 will be at SAP Center this Saturday at 7 p.m.