With a little under 7 minutes left in the second period at Tuscon on Friday night, the San Diego Gulls clinched an AHL playoff spot.
It came via San Jose’s regulation win at Colorado, eliminating the Eagles from being able to finish above the Gulls.
After that there was a little matter of winning a game for San Diego, but it wasn’t to be as Tucson’s Conor Garland scored with two seconds left in overtime to lift the Roadrunners to a 4-3 victory.
The two teams will play again tonight at Tucson with a lot on the line.
The Gulls (35-24-5-3) currently have 77 points followed by the Roadrunners (34-25-5-3) with 76 and Colorado with 75. San Diego owns the tiebreaker over the Eagles and thus are in the Calder Cup playoffs after a year’s absence.
However, if the Gulls beat Tucson tonight and Colorado beats San Jose, the Eagles would get the fourth and final spot. If Tucson wins and Colorado loses, the Roadrunners would finish third and the Gulls would finish fourth.
If the Gulls and Tucson go to overtime, Tucson would get third place on the tiebreaker if it wins the game.
On Friday night, the Gulls received goals from Ben Street, Sam Steel and Sam Carrick. Goalie Kevin Boyle made 28 saves in the loss.
“It feels good,” said Street of making the playoffs. “Obviously we’re still playing for position, so (Saturday’s) going to count for a lot. It’s a little bit of a relief. Now the work really gets to start and we get to play in the second season which is a lot more fun.”
Gulls coach Dallas Eakins was happy to make the playoffs, but a little disappointed with the way the game ended as there was an apparent clock issue in the final seconds.
“It’s great to be in the playoffs but I’m not happy with what went on here tonight with the clock not being started,” said Eakins, “the referee not blowing his whistle when he knew (the clock) was not going, then obviously not going back to even have some kind of review. It’s one thing for us, but if I’m the Colorado Eagles I’m very upset tonight.”
