Game 7: San Diego Gulls vs Tucson Roadrunners – Oct 27

Alex Dostie (10) attempts to control a puck in action against the Tuscon Road Runners. Credit San Diego Gulls

Alex Dostie (10) attempts to control a puck in action against the Tuscon Road Runners. Credit San Diego Gulls

With the recall of Jacob Larsson and Andy Welinski, the door re-opened for Keaton Thompson and Steve Oleksy to come back into the line-up. It also meant breaking up the dominant Larsson and Benoit pairing. Benoit was instead paired with Dotchin.

The first period featured a lot of back and forth play, San Diego played conservative in their own zone – bodying up on the Tuscon forwards and quickly taking away space. The Roadrunners had a few opportunities on intercepts with their fore-check. Dotchin in particular stood out with his ability to defuse the Tuscon offense and get pucks moving back up ice.

With seven minutes left in the period, the Kossila line stormed into the Tuscon zone and Troy Terry flipped a perfect no-look pass to Kossila to get the easy opener, but the ref waved it off – claiming that Max Jones impeded the Tuscon goaltender.

The teams traded power-plays late in the period, but the period ended scoreless with the visitors out-shooting the hosts 12-10.

A minute and a half into the middle frame San Diego scored on the power play when Kalle Kossila collected a nifty pass from Mahura on the left wall and fired in the games opening goal, his second in as many games.

Just past the halfway point of the period the Gulls won a defensive zone face-off but Steve Oleksy turned the puck over down low and the Roadrunners quickly fed it to the slot where an uncovered David Ullstrom brought the visitors into a tie.

Play continued without too many chances for either side until the Tropp, Carrick and Thomson line got the cycle going in the Tucson zone, Ben Thomson in particular making some Getzlaf-esque turns before feeding down low to Tropp who in turn found him sliding open into the slot where he fired a one-timer past Hunter Miska for his 2nd of the year.

With just under two minutes left a Tuscon forward flew into the San Diego net and Jacob Megna was called for interference on a dubious and confusing infraction. On the resulting power play the Roadrunners setup and hammered a one timer passed a screened Jared Correau to even things up.

At the 12:21 mark another miscue from Oleksy resulted in the Roadrunners getting a shot from a dangerous area and the puck deflected in for the Tuscon lead.

Just after the halfway point of the final period Troy Terry carried the puck into the Tuscon zone, drew a defender and took the hit while flicking across to Kossila who made a deft toe-drag before firing a laser through the partial screen created by the move and into the net to tie things up at 3.

The visitors fought back and were relentless on the fore-check for the rest of the game, pouring on the shots and finishing the period with a 17 to 10 shot advantage, but Jared Correau stood tall and made the saves he was called upon to make to send both teams to OT and the Gulls 2nd consecutive extra time session.

Both teams traded chances on the 3 on 3 but San Diego faced adversity when another curious call went against them – this time assigned to Corey Tropp for slashing. They successfully killed the minor thanks in part to Correau and some strong play from Sam Carrick and Jake Dotchin. With less than a minute left in the session, Mahura lost his man on the boards and Chase De Leo was on the wrong side of his as the Roadrunners executed a play in the slot to end the game and send the Gulls to their second straight OT loss.