GAMEDAY: BARRACUDA VS ROADRUNNERS
Dec 8, 2017LISTEN | WATCH | GAME NOTES
Tonight’s Matchup: On Friday, the Barracuda take on the top team in the Pacific as the Tucson Roadrunners make their first visit to Northern California in 2017-18. San Jose and Tucson will play each other eight times this season and three times in a row starting on Friday. The Barracuda will travel to the Old Pueblo next week to battle the ‘Runners on Tuesday and Wednesday. A season ago, the Cuda went 5-1-1-1 against the Arizona Coyotes top affiliate.
Young Guns: The Tucson Roadrunners top three scorers through a third of the season are all AHL freshman. Dyan Strome (8+18=26), Nick Merkley (12+11=23), and Kyle Capobianco (2+12=14) have paced the leagues fifth-youngest club (23.38 years of age) in points to the top spot in the Pacific through a league-low 18 games. Among AHL rookies, Strome and Merkley rank #1 and #2 in points. Strome and Capobianco are both currently up with the Coyotes in NHL.
700 For Sommer: San Jose Barracuda Head Coach and Bay Area native Roy Sommer collected his 700th AHL win of his career on Sunday in 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 is 700-614-48-72-65 (W-L-T-OTL-SOL) in his career and Friday will be his 1,500th of his AHL career.
Cuda Call Up: After last Saturday’s recall of Marcus Sorensen, the Sharks now possess eight players from the Barracuda’s Calder Cup playoff roster from a year ago (Marcus Sorensen, Danny O’Regan, Joakim Ryan, Tim Heed, Barclay Goodrow, Timo Meier, Kevin Labanc and Ryan Carpenter).
Awesome Antoine: Barracuda netminder Antoine Bibeau was yanked from Wednesday's 6-0 loss after allowing three goals on eight shots but still ranks seventh in the AHL in goals-against average (2.14), 12th in save percentage (.921), and is T-first in shutouts (2).