Tucson Roadrunners Road Ahead: Round One

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AHL Tucson Roadrunners

Tucson Roadrunners Road Ahead: Round One

April 22, 2025 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Tucson Roadrunners News Release


Tucson Roadrunners right wing Austin Poganski
Tucson Roadrunners right wing Austin Poganski
(Tucson Roadrunners)

First Round Schedule For The Calder Cup Playoffs

Game 1 Wednesday, Apr. 23 TUC @ ABB 7 p.m. PT. Abbotsford Centre

Game 2 Thursday, Apr. 24 TUC @ ABB 7 p.m. PT. Abbotsford Centre

Game 3* Saturday, Apr. 26 TUC @ ABB 7 p.m. PT. Abbotsford Centre

*if necessary

The Head-To-Head:

The seventh seed Tucson Roadrunners begin the 2025 Calder Cup Playoffs with a best of three series versus the second seed Abbotsford Canucks with all three games at the Abbotsford Centre. Tucson, who finished the season 34-32-4-2 with 74 points, will face an Abbotsford team that went 44-24-2-2; finishing just two points behind the first seed Colorado Eagles (43-21-5-3) at 92. Abbotsford, despite the great 2024-25 record, are one of the five teams this season the Roadrunners beat in the season series at 5-3-0-0; outscoring them only by a 24-23 margin. Out of the eight game season series, five of them were two-goal games. However, Tucson swept Abbotsford twice in two separate two-game sets, with the first coming from Dec. 20 and Dec. 21 in Abbotsford with two 4-2 victories and the other the last time these two teams faced from Feb. 22 and Feb. 23 in Tucson. The second weekend sweep included a 3-2 win in game one and a 4-3 overtime win in game two. However, the Roadrunners themselves have been swept by Abbotsford from Jan. 24 to Jan. 25 at the Tucson Arena which was part of Tucson's season-high eight-game winless streak from Jan. 14 to Feb 1. The only time these two teams split up a series was the very first matchup in October in Abbotsford where the Canucks won game one 3-0 on Oct. 29 but Tucson responded with a 5-2 win on Oct. 30. Though Abbotsford had the third most wins in the league at home (24), Tucson went 3-1-0-0 at the Canucks home arena. Roadrunners forward Kailer Yamamoto lead Tucson in scoring versus Abbotsford with nine points (1 goal, 8 assists) while fellow forwards Hunter Drew and Cameron Hebig each led Tucson in goals versus Abbotsford with four apiece. As for the goaltending, Tucson allowed a 2.87 goals against average to Abbotsford; with Matthew Villalta leading the way with a 2.52 goals against average and .925 save percentage stopping 124 of 134 shots with a 2-2-0-0 record in four starts. Special teams wise, Tucson went five-for-29 (17.2%) on the power-play and 34-for-40 (85%) on the penalty-kill versus Abbotsford.

A Look At The Raspberry Capital:

The Abbotsford Canucks finished the 2024-25 regular season as the hottest team in the AHL, going 16-1-0-1 in the final 18 games of the year including a season and league best 13-game winning streak from March 8 to April 11; just three games after Tucson had beaten the Canucks 4-3 in overtime on Feb. 23. The Canucks ended the season with one of the best offenses in the league with 241 total goals that averaged to a 3.34 goals for per game; ranking them fourth best in the AHL. However, the offense dips down a bit to 12th best in the league at home with a 3.16 goals for per game with 114 goals. The Canucks are stacked when it comes to talent, just regaining back seven players from the Vancouver Canucks: including goaltender Nikita Tolopilo, forwards Linus Karlsson, Max Sasson, Aatu Raty and Ty Mueller and defensemen Kirill Kudryavtsev and Victor Mancini. With Abbotsford fully loaded, the team will have six players with a points-per-game average of .78 or better. Forward Linus Karlsson leads the Canucks with a 1.22 points-per-game average with 23 goals and 16 assists for 39 points in 32 games played. The other Canucks players with a points-per-game average of .78 or better include: Aatu Raty (.93), Arshdeep Bains (.86), Sammy Blais (.78), Max Sasson (.78) and Jonathan Lekkerimäki (.78). Abbotsford goaltending on the other hand, had an outstanding combined 2.58 goals against average but just a .903 save percentage as the Canucks only allowed 27.17 shots against per game that was ranked seventh best in the AHL. Nikita Tolopilo led all Canucks goalies in minutes (2052) games played (36) and wins (20). Despite his 2.66 goals against average that ranked him 17th-best amongst goalies who have appeared in 30 or more games on the year, his .902 save percentage set him at 24th in the league. His fellow netminder Artūrs Šilovs appeared in much less games at 21, but had a lower goals against average (2.41) and higher save percentage (.908%) with a 14-5-1 record. However, Šilovs left Friday's game for Abbotsford against the Coachella Valley Firebirds with injury. If he is unable to go in the series, Abbotsford would rely on Tolopilo for the first two games of the match on Wednesday and Thursday, who has only played in three full back-to-back games this season.

The Leaders:

The Roadrunners had some career seasons from some of their players in a roller coaster 2024-25 year. Forward Kailer Yamamoto led the team in total points (56) and assists (36) while being tied for third in goals (20). Yamamoto, who came to the Roadrunners through waivers all the way back in October, became just the fourth Roadrunner in team history to finish a season over a point-per-game in at least 50 games. His 36 assists are also the sixth best all-time in a single season and his 20 goals marked the first time ever that four different players had 20 goals or better also including: forwards Cameron Hebig (26), Egor Sokolov (22) and Assistant Captain Andrew Agozzino (20). For Hebig, his 26 goals led the entire team setting a career high in goals, assists (21) and total points (47). Returning veteran Defenseman Robbie Russo finished the season as the top scoring defenseman with four goals and 30 assists for 34 points. His 30 assists on the team were ranked second just behind Yamamoto and now Russo has hit 30 points or better in seven seasons of his 10-year career. As for the power-play, both Agozzino (7 goals, 9 assists) and Yamamoto (5 goals, 11 assists) led Tucson with 16 points each on the man-advantage. However, Russo and second-year defenseman Maksymilian Szuber led the team each with 12 assists. In addition, forward Curtis Douglas led the team in fights with nine while defenseman Montana Onyebuchi and forward Hunter Drew were very second with eight. Other fight totals included: Travis Barron (4), Maveric Lamoureux (2), Ben McCartney (2), Kevin Connauton (1), Sam Lipkin (1), Maksymilian Szuber (1) and Robbie Russo (1); totaling the team fight count to 37 on the season.

Playoff Experience Across The Team:

Tucson will have plenty of playoff experience entering round one of the postseason; with Robbie Russo having played the most playoff games amongst the team with 47 across the Grand Rapids Griffins, (23), Utica Comets (10) San Jose Barracuda (4). His most significant season in the playoffs was winning the Calder Cup with the Griffins in the 2017 season. Overall, Russo has three goals and 19 assists for 22 points in his AHL playoff career. Kevin Connauton has 38 playoff games under his belt: including 30 in the AHL and eight in the NHL. His recent playoff run was with the Ontario Reign last season where he finished with one assist in seven games. Yamamoto has the third most North American pro playoff games played on the team with all coming in the NHL as a member of the Edmonton Oilers from 2019-2023; scoring three goals and nine assists for 12 points in the stretch. Captain Austin Poganski, who's coming off his best season in the AHL with 15 goals and 26 assists for 41 points, played in the Calder Cup final with the Coachella Valley Firebirds in the 2022-23 season. Fellow captain Andrew Agozzino has not seen the playoffs since the 2022 season with the Belleville Senators but still has 16 points (9 goals, 7 assists) in 19 Calder Cup Playoff games.

We Are Live:

Tucson Roadrunners Happy Hour airs every Tuesday at 5 p.m. on FOX Sports 1450AM and the iHeartRadio app, with a podcast version also available after each episode on the iHeartRadio app and Apple Podcast. This week, the "Voice of The Roadrunners" Jonathon Schaffer and Co-Host Kim Cota-Robles are joined by Roadrunners Communications and Media Relations Coordinator Chase Clemens. Listen live each week and the podcast version after.

Check out the Tucson Roadrunners Statistics




Images from this story

Tucson Roadrunners goaltender Matthew Villalta
Tucson Roadrunners goaltender Matthew Villalta
 Tucson Roadrunners center Andrew Agozzino
Tucson Roadrunners center Andrew Agozzino
 Tucson Roadrunners exchange congratulations along the bench
Tucson Roadrunners exchange congratulations along the bench
Tucson Roadrunners right wing Austin Poganski
Tucson Roadrunners right wing Austin Poganski
   

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