BARRACUDA ELIMINATED FROM PLAYOFFS AFTER 5-2 LOSS TO SAN DIEGO
Apr 24, 2019San Jose, Ca - On the brink of elimination, the San Jose Barracuda (1-3) looked to extend their best-of-five series to a fifth game on Wednesday at the SAP Center but despite an early start the San Diego Gulls (3-1) (Anaheim Ducks) found a way to storm back and take the series 3-1 and the game 5-2.
The Barracuda came out of the gates firing when Alex True (1) carried a puck across the slot and ripped a wrist shot from above the left face-off circle that beat San Diego netminder Jeff Glass' five-hole only 50 seconds into the game. The Gulls would even the score at 15:46 when Sam Carrick (2) received a pass from Corey Tropp and slapped in a one-timer from the low slot. The first was a tale of two halves as San Jose outshot the Gulls 10-to-one at one point before San Diego put nine of the period's final 10 shots on net to close out the frame.
Early in the second, the Gulls capitalized on a four minute power-play when Andy Welinski (1) bombed a slapshot from the left point that beat a screened Josef Korenar at 3:43. At 6:43, San Diego would strike again when they took advantage of a turnover deep in San Jose's zone that ended up on the tape of Sam Steel (3) who wired a snapshot from in-between the face-off dots over the blocker of Korenar to take a 3-1 lead. San Jose would cut the deficit in half at 13:39 on the power-play when Nick DeSimone (1) blasted a shot from the left blue line that beat Glass over the glove hand to make it 3-2.
The Gulls scored first in the third period on another defensive zone turnover by San Jose, Matt Berry sent a wrister from just inside of the right face-off circle that grazed off the blade of Adam Cracknell (2) and in at 5:12. The Gulls locked down defensively from that point forward and tacked on an empty net goal from Chase De Leo (4) to hold on and win 5-2.
Glass (3-1) earned the victory for San Diego by stopping 30 of 32 shots, while Korenar (1-3) took the loss for San Jose surrendering four goals on 29 shots.
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