The Roadrunners are leaving Tucson for the first time this season, and the destination is San Jose for a two-game set against the Barracuda on Friday and Saturday.
Friday’s game is scheduled for 7 p.m. MST, with Saturday’s puck drop coming at 6 p.m.
MST. Tucson enters the series at 0-2-0-0 after dropping both of its home-openers to the Colorado Eagles.
The Roadrunners were shut out on Saturday, then came back on Sunday and scored three goals before falling 5-3.
San Jose comes in at 1-1-0-0 after splitting with the San Diego Gulls. The Barracuda closed that set with a 5-4 overtime win on Sunday. This weekend’s matchups are the third and fourth games of San Jose’s six-game homestand to begin the season, and they are also the first two of eight meetings between the clubs this year.
Tucson has had success against San Jose before. The last time the teams met was Mar. 1, 2026, in San Jose, when the Roadrunners won 6-4.
Last season, captain Austin Poganski led Tucson in scoring against the Barracuda with 10 points (2g, 8a), and he also paced the Roadrunners overall with 56 points (23g, 33a). Cameron Hebig led Tucson in goals against San Jose with six and finished that season with nine points (6g, 3a).
A few themes stand out heading into the series. Tucson has shown a knack for late-period damage, with goals late in each of the first two periods on Sunday against Colorado.
Montana Onyebuchi opened the scoring with less than two minutes left in the first, and Kevin Rooney made it happen again with 52 seconds left in the second. That late-clock feel showed up earlier, too, when rookie defenseman Cal Thomas scored the game-winner against Texas in the preseason with 56 seconds remaining.
There’s also a familiar face in the mix. Jack Ricketts was productive the last time Tucson and San Jose met, scoring his fourth goal of the season and adding two assists over the two-game series. He finished the 2025-26 season with five goals and 10 points.
And then there’s the new blood. Rookie Vadim Moroz tied Sunday’s game with Tucson’s third goal of the night, picking up his first professional goal in North America.
Moroz arrived from Dinamo Minsk in the Kontinental Hockey League, where he was named a 2026 KHL All-Star. He also finished the 2024-25 season first among Dinamo skaters in goals and second in game-winning goals.
Sunday’s game also delivered a clean little milestone line for Tucson’s rookie class. Three first-year players recorded their first AHL career points: Yegor Borikov and Gregor Biber each picked up assists on Rooney’s second-period goal, and Moroz added his goal in the third.
One more note from Sunday: Onyebuchi scored Tucson’s first goal of the season after serving time in the box for dropping the gloves with Colorado’s Yanick Turcotte. He came within an assist of a Gordie Howe hat trick, and his lone Gordie Howe hat trick in the AHL came while playing for San Jose on Nov. 25, 2022, against the Henderson Silver Knights. On that night, he shared the ice with former Roadrunners teammate Andrew Agozzino, who is now his assistant coach.
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