The San Diego Gulls squandered two leads and were held scoreless in a shootout in a 5-4 loss to the Tucson Roadrunners Monday as their winless streak reached six games.
Former Gull Chris Mueller’s power-play goal with two minutes, 26 minutes to play in regulation tied the score and scored the lone shootout goal.
The Gulls were on the power play for the opening 37 seconds of overtime thanks to Laurent Dauphin’s high-sticking penalty with 1:23 left in regulation, but were unable to score.
Overtime in the American Hockey League is usually played with three skaters per team, but when there is a power play, the team on the power play gets an additional skater.
The Gulls outshot Tucson, 3-1, in the five-minute overtime before a crowd announced at 7,521 at Valley View Casino Center.
The Gulls failed to score on all four of their shootout shots. The Roadrunners failed to score on their first three.
Defenseman Brandon Montour gave the Gulls a 4-3 lead by scoring with 8:35 to play. Montour had assisted on each of the Gulls first three goals.
The Gulls (11-11-1-1) capitalized on a five-on-three power-play as Kevin Roy scored his team-leading 10th goal 1:27 into the third period, tying the score, 3-3.
Mueller scored a power-play goal 15:14 into the second period, 20 seconds after the Gulls were penalized for having two many men on the ice.
Tucson defenseman Zbynek Michalek put a shot past Gulls goaltender Dustin Tokarski at 7:53 of the second period to tie the score, 2-2.
Jaycob Megna and Ryan Garbutt scored 1:15 apart in the second period to give the Gulls a 2-1 lead, with Garbutt’s goal coming when the Gulls were shorthanded.
The goal was Garbutt’s first in his six games since being assigned to the Gulls by their NHL parent team, the Anaheim Ducks, on Dec. 10.
The Roadrunners, the Arizona Coyotes AHL affiliate, opened the scoring with 11 seconds left in the first period on Michael Bunting’s goal.
Goaltender Justin Peters stopped 23 of 27 shots, including 10 in the third period for Tucson (14-6-3-0).
Tokarski also made 23 saves.
The Gulls were one for six on the power play and killed two of four of the Roadrunners power-play opportunities.
The game was the Gulls first since a 3-1 loss to the Stockton Heat on Dec. 10.
The Gulls will face the Ontario Reign, the Los Angeles Kings AHL affiliate, Wednesday at Valley View Casino Center.
— City News Service
