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AHL Tucson Roadrunners

Roadrunners Drop Preseason Opener Against Henderson Before Kicking off Regular Season Friday Night in Texas

October 7, 2023 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Tucson Roadrunners News Release


Tucson Roadrunners' Colin Theisen in action
Tucson Roadrunners' Colin Theisen in action
(Tucson Roadrunners, Credit: Zak Krill, Henderson Silver Knights)

Tucson, Arizona - The Tucson Roadrunners journeyed to Henderson, Nevada for a Friday night preseason tilt against the Henderson Silver Knights. Puck was dropped and both sides went 9:05 before the first scoring action of the preseason. It was Tucson Roadrunners defenseman Vlad Kolyachonok who struck first, finding the back of the net on an assist from Aku Raty and Ryan McGregor. Just under two minutes after the Tucson goal came the first penalty of the game. It was a high-sticking minor on Henderson and gave Tucson their first power-play attempt. That power-play, as well as one other was killed by Henderson in the first and the game remained 1-0. Henderson struck back at the 15:53 mark of the first period with a goal of their own, knotting things up 1-1 with a Jonas Rondbjerg goal. A fight between Tucson's Montana Onyebuchi and Henderson's Mason Geertsen would lead to a 5-minute fighting penalty for both squads. The first 20 minutes would end without much additional action and Tucson would take the ice for the second in a 1-1 game.

The second period gave us a lot of Tucson shots on goal, 13 to be exact, but only one goal got past Henderson netminder Jiri Patera. That goal came from the stick of Cameron Hebig. Hebig totaled 9 goals last season and kicked off his 2023-2024 preseason campaign with a big one. His goal only briefly gave Tucson the 2-1 lead as just over 2 minutes later it was a power-play goal for Henderson's Mason Morelli. Morelli scored a tic-tac-toe ruining the Roadrunners hopes of a successful penalty-kill. It was the first penalty-kill attempt of the preseason from Tucson. The period ended with the score being 2-2 after each team scored one in each of the first two periods.

Period 3 began with Jared Moe stepping in between the pipes for Tucson. Moe was phenomenal in his AHL preseason debut stopping all 14 shots on goal against him in both the third period and the five minute three-on-three overtime. The highlight of the period for Tucson was successfully killing the one Henderson power-play that they faced.

As time expired in overtime and the game headed to a shootout it was Henderson's Jakub Brabenec who scored the difference maker in the game and the only goal of the shootout in the top of round three. Tucson returns to the ice for their regular season opener next Friday, October 13th in Texas as they take on the Texas Stars (Dallas Stars AHL affiliate).

Postgame Quote From Roadrunners Head Coach Steve Potvin "I saw a lot of our details, I thought a lot of guys were responsible in the defensive zone and answered the questions pretty well. It's tough to lose when you feel like you had good control of it for long stretches but we did a lot of good things out there today and we can build off of that. What I like the most about our group is they stuck together tonight, and it looks like they will be a team that makes sure they have each other's backs."

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Images from this story

Tucson Roadrunners' Colin Theisen in action
Tucson Roadrunners' Colin Theisen in action
(Zak Krill, Henderson Silver Knights)		   



American Hockey League Stories from October 7, 2023


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