Roadrunners win first ever home game

TUCSON, Ariz. – The Tucson Roadrunners hosted their inaugural home opener in a fast paced, action packed game against the Stockton Heat, which saw them come from a 3-0 deficit to win the game with a final score of 6-5 before a sell out crowd at the Tucson Convention Center.

The Heat lead 3-0 by the 5:11 mark of the first period, with goals off the sticks of Mike Angelidis, Linden Vey and Mark Jankowski. Tucson finally seemed to have settled down when Jarred Tinordi scored the teams first home goal in franchise history at 8:37. Their second goal came only a few minutes later, when Mark Olver beat Jon Gillies stickside to close the gap to 3-2.

Morgan Klimchuk’s goal for the Heat at 6:02 of the second period looked to help the team pull ahead of the Roadrunners. The chippiness increased between the two teams until erupting into a fight between Ryan Lomberg and Garret Ross. When the action resumed, Tucson’s momentum and energy increased, resulting in a pair of goals, one each from Ryan MacInnis and Tyler Gaudet. The two goals were both scored by Tucson’s special teams. MacInnis was a power play goal, and Gaudet caught a loose puck in the neutral zone and scored on a shorthanded breakaway, which left the two teams tied going into the third period.

Chris Mueller’s goal at 3:35 into the period gave Tucson their first lead of the night, only to be tied again when Garnet Hathaway scored about midway through the period. The two teams seemed fairly equal for the period. Eric Selleck was sent to the penalty box to serve a roughing penalty, and in a near textbook play, when his time ended, he stepped from the box, received the puck and raced it down towards the net, with no Heat players near him. His quick wrist shot beat Gillies five-hole, for the ultimate game winning goal.

Adin Hill had 36 saves for the Roadrunners win, while Gillies had 27 in the net for Stockton’s loss.

“It was big deal for us to get those two goals, and we increased the momentum into the second period,” said Hill after the game.
Roadrunner Head Coach Mark Lamb was pleased with what he saw on the ice tonight, but acknowledges there’s still some work to be done, noting that the early portion of the game showed that.

“You want to come out and really do good your first time, you want to do it for the fans and your teammates. You just need a reset and that’s what we did. It was an entertaining, fun game.”

The reset came after the Heat scored goal number three, when Lamb called a time-out to try to settle his players.

“We had to clean up some things. There was too much space in the neutral zone. They were coming at us on the rush. There were a lot of things I liked about the game too.”

Lamb then followed up with, “I liked our offense and our special teams. We won the special teams battle. We scored two power play goals and they didn’t get any on the penalty kill. That’s a positive sign.”

“You want to come out and really do good your first time, you want to do it for the fans and your teammates. You just need a reset and that’s what we did. It was an entertaining, fun game.”

Coach Lamb gave the best overall of the night, when asked what he thought the fans would think. “It was an exciting game, a little of everything. Lots of goals, fights and aggressive hockey. People walked away with a good feeling of what our team is all about.”

Coyote’s General Manager John Chayka was on hand before the game and spoke with the media about the opportunity to bring the Roadrunners into the Coyote organization.

“It’s a game changer, we’ve had our challenges over the past number of years. We think this situation with this team, with where we are at as an organization, brings a huge competitive advantage, where we can have call-up players, provide our players with resources, and the infrastructures and create these synergies between the two staff is really unprecedented. It’s going to bring our organization to the next level.”

AHL Commissioner Dave Andrews commented about the addition of the Roadrunners to the Western Division.

“I think here in Tucson it’s been in the works for probably three years. When we moved the western AHL teams before, it was a complex endeavor to move that many teams all at once. We didn’t have a franchise available at the time, or we would have been here about 12 months ago. This is a combination of a lot of work by a lot of people.”

Andrews explained that the addition of this team brings another opponent for the existing teams out west, and helps to keep travel costs down.

“This is a great step and I’m really excited about the market. The response is great from the fans and community and the building renovations have been great,” Andrews said.

These two teams will return for another game on Sunday afternoon.