San Diego Gulls vs San Jose Barracuda: Game 1

In the opening game of the Gulls return to the playoffs with a jam packed roster Coach Dallas Eakins elected to scratch recent regulars Jack Kopacka and Brent Gates Jr as well as Patrick Sieloff and Ondrej Sustr. Trevor Murphy was moved up to play at forward on the fourth line with Berry and Cracknell. Kevin Boyle was given the start.

Perhaps as a portent of things to come the Gulls appeared to come out skittish. Turning over pucks with little to no pressure, missing setup passes in the offensive zone and allowing follow up attempts on Boyle in close. The Barracuda smelled blood and it took just over three minutes for them to strike as a shot through traffic from near the blue line found its way through Boyle. 1-0 Barracuda.

After a strong bounce back shift from the Gulls that Chase De Leo came close to tying things up on, the Barracuda responded with a cycle in the San Diego zone that resulted in another goal – one that Kevin Boyle definitely should have had as Jeffrey Viel executed the most slow-motion wrap around in AHL history and still managed to get it by Boyle while Matt Berry helplessly tried to prevent him while not having body position. 2-0 Barracuda.

Less than a minute later Dylan Gambrell took the puck out from behind the Gulls net, skated into space with no San Diego player making any move to stop him and fired a shot over Boyle’s shoulder to make it 3-0.

At 13:45 Kevin Boyle was relieved and replaced by Jeff Glass in an attempt to turn the tide.

At 12.50 after Matt Berry got the puck into the Barracuda zone and Adam Cracknell retrieved it down low, a pass eventually made its way to Jacob Larsson who sent a hard wrist shot through traffic past Antoine Bibeau to get the Gulls on the board. 3-1.

On the very next shift the Gulls completely dominated the Barracuda, winning puck battles and throwing the puck on net at every opportunity. The chaos that was created left Sam Carrick alone in the slot and a brilliant pass from Ben Street later the Gulls were 3-2.

San Diego kept rolling from there, dominating shots for the next five minutes before Kiefer Sherwood beat his defender with speed wide and fired a shot through Bibeau to tie the game 3-3 at the 9.42 of the first period.

Similarly to Boyle, this spelled the end of the night for Bibeau and the Czech rookie Korenar came in.

At the 7:37 minute mark the Gulls faced their fist penalty kill of the game and the Barracuda had a great chance right off the face-off as they were able to setup in the San Diego zone and break the Gulls penalty killing box with a cross ice pass but Glass slid across in time to make the save on the one-timer.
That would be the only error by the Gulls on the kill as they finished off the rest of the time with ease then were given a power play of their own a few minutes later as Trevor Murphy was hooked on a breakaway.

With forty seconds left Trevor Murphy showed off his offensive skill by sending a cross ice pass to Jake Dotchin who had snuck in down low but Korenar made a standout save to keep the game tied 3-3. Teams headed to the first intermission back at square one and shots fittingly even at 13-13.

The second period began with further dominance from the Gulls – coming close on several opportunities including a beautiful drop pass by Berry to Murphy but the newly converted forward fired the shot wide. Less than a minute later Sam Steel had a golden opportunity that Korenar saved whilst laying on his side.

In a cruel twist the Barracuda took all of that pressure and in one of their very few forays into the Gulls zone – took the lead off a feed to the slot after a bad turnover down low from Kalle Kossila. 4-3 Barracuda.

San Diego went right back to dominating play in the San Jose zone and after Max Jones made a nuisance of himself with Cavan Fitzgerald the Barracuda defender executed multiple punishable offenses on Jones that the officials chose to ignore until Jones responded with an elbow that they suddenly did deem to be penalty worthy and the rookie was sent to the box for roughing. San Diego killed the penalty with ease, disallowing the Barracuda from setting up in the zone for almost the entire two minutes.

After San Diego had a great opportunity from Street in front but couldn’t get control of the puck the Barracuda responded with yet another goal from a bad San Diego turnover. Trevor Murphy this time had a chance to clear the San Diego zone but his attempt bounced weakly back into the slot where it was recovered by the Barracuda and taken down low, eventually fired out front via a cross-crease pass and past Glass for the 5-3 lead.

Of much concern was the disturbing trend of the Barracuda winning puck races in the Gulls zone on back to back shifts for the next few minutes but Glass stayed strong and turned aside any opportunities resulting and as things had gone in this game, it was the Gulls turn to respond with a goal off of a quick shift in momentum as Corey Tropp finished off a rebound from a big shot by Carrick in the slot. 5-4 Barracuda.

Two minutes later San Diego once again carried their forward momentum into a tie as some magnificent passing culminated in a beautiful goal by Chase De Leo, his stick perfectly placed to bat a mid-air pass by Korenar to finish off a play that had the Barracuda players seemingly petrified by the dizzying amount of puck play between Gulls forwards. Tie game once again, 5-5

Play was frenetic for the final two minutes as both goaltenders were forced to turn away high danger chances and with thirty five minutes left the Gulls were sent back to the penalty kill by the friendly officials for seemingly no reason other than Jake Dotchin being a large human being. The period finished with the score tied (again) and shots 27 to 26 for the Gulls.

San Diego killed the penalty with ease and play reverted to its back and forth rhythm as the physicality inadvertently picked up. Jake Dotchin had a scare as he was involved in a high speed collision at the top of the left face-off circle in the Gulls zone that appeared to leave him winded.
Sam Steel drew a rare penalty when he was hauled down behind the San Jose net and the Gulls went to the Power Play with 13:39 remaining in the third. San Diego had the visitors under siege for the entire man-advantage and would have taken the lead but for Korenar almost quite literally standing on his head.

The teams continued to exchange chances for the remainder of the game, at one point Jeff Glass made a pivotal back to back save both on an initial shot and then again diving to prevent the rebound. The Gulls created their own frenzy and an opportunity for Andy Welinski was denied with four minutes left. San Diego controlled play for the remainder of the period. Corey Tropp almost had the go-ahead goal with thirty seconds left as he jumped on a rebound to the side of the net but Korenar shut down the chance. The Barracuda came back with a rush of their own in the final ten seconds but the suddenly rarely bothered Glass kept out the backhand shot. Teams headed to sudden death overtime with shots 40-35 for the Gulls.

San Diego continued their barrage of momentum to start the OT as first the Carrick line had some pressure on Korenar, followed by the De Leo line, and with just a minute and ten seconds gone in the overtime session Kiefer Sherwood proved his prowess for scoring clutch goals once again as he followed up a Max Jones drive to deposit a rebound neatly by the sprawling Korenar for the Gulls win. 6-5 Gulls.

Post game notes:

• San Jose were not happy with the game winning goal, claiming that Korenar was attempting to cover the puck to freeze the play as Sherwood poked it in.
• The vets lead the way as Tropp and Street both had two point nights while Sam Carrick had a three point night, which earned him first star of the game.
• The Barracuda spread their scoring more evenly but San Diego will need to keep an eye on Dylan Gambrell, TJ Hensick and Ivan Chekhovich for the remainder of the series as they were they stand out threats for San Jose.
• Kiefer Sherwood is clutch when it matters most, he scored an overtime goal in one of the final games of the regular season last year in just his second professional game.