After sweeping the San Jose Barracuda, the Tucson Roadrunners return home to host an old rival.
Tucson (2-2) faces the San Diego Gulls (2-2-1-0) this weekend in a two-game series on Friday and Saturday nights at home. Both games are at 7 p.m.
The Gulls are the AHL affiliate of the Anaheim Ducks.
The Roadrunners got back to .500 by beating the San Jose Sharks’ top farm team 7-4 and 4-1 last weekend.
Last season, San Diego beat out Tucson for the Pacific Division’s final playoff spot on a tiebreaker. Both sides finished with 78 points, so the Gulls made it in due to having more regulation wins.
Tucson went 3-3-2-0 last year against San Diego but have lost four in a row to the Gulls and SD won the I-8 Border Trophy for the second time. The trophy dates back to 2016-17 and the other time the Roadrunners didn’t win it was 2021-22.
Rookie forward Vadim Moroz leads the Roadrunners in goals with three and has a three-game scoring streak. Forward Caleb Desnoyers scored in both contests in San Jose and forward Yegor Borikov has a point in three straight games.
Those three rookies have nine points in Tucson’s last two games.
Meanwhile, the Ducks recalled San Diego’s leading goal scorer, center Roger McQueen, on Tuesday. The rookie has three goals in four AHL games this year.
Friday is Dragons Night at the TCC and Saturday is Horror Night.
FREE HOCKEY
Saturday’s game gained national recognition on Tuesday when the AHL announced it is the league’s free game of the week.
The Roadrunners games are streamed on AHLTV on FloHockey and occasionally their games are available to watch for free.
The game is on FloHockey 24/7 and FloHockey’s YouTube channel for free.
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