Roadrunners rolled the dice, and it paid off to keep Tucson in thick of playoff hunt

A spin of the roulette wheel? Hitting on 16 at blackjack? Maybe not so much.

With the Roadrunners still narrowly hanging on to a playoff position as the AHL regular season winds down — and a win the only way to ensure they wouldn’t fall to the outside looking in — Potvin had a strategic decision to make Saturday night as Tucson and the league-leading Calgary Wranglers entered overtime at Tucson Arena:

Option 1: Take a chance on the wheel that is hockey overtime by having the Roadrunners push the tempo and go for the golden goal in the 3-on-3, open-ice format. But that could have been pushing him team’s luck, with the Roadrunners 0-5 in games that end in OT this season — including losing twice less than 26 seconds into the extra frame.

Option 2: Play it a bit safer, hoping to play with house money in a shootout — thought of by many as less about strategy in its own right and more of that proverbial crapshoot for its one-on-one, gimmick-like, skater-on-goalie approach. Tucson was 2-0 in shootouts before Saturday night.

Potvin knew where his team had the hot hand, so he rolled the dice; his team played for the shootout instead of going for broke in OT.

All talk of dice and wheels is metaphorical, of course. But Potvin and the Roadrunners won big Saturday in any case, earning that 3-2 shootout win over the Wranglers to improve to 3-0 in shootouts.

“In the past I think our strategy was to try and win it 3-on-3. But our record so far has gone our way for the shootout,” he said after the win. “So the aim tonight was trying to get us to that shootout.”

The Roadrunners weren’t without chances during overtime, even posting four shots on goal in the five-minute session. One of those came from forward Josh Doan, who, in just his second pro game, had a near-coast-to-coast drive toward Calgary’s net. Considering the crowd of 5,600 on hand, including his dad, Arizona Coyotes legend Shane Doan, the building would have exploded had Doan connected in that moment. (The same might have happened had Doan scored on Tucson’s second shootout attempt; he couldn’t connect.)

But all things considered, the Roadrunners appeared to play a tad more defensive-minded — a

The Roadrunners’ relatively reserved style maintained puck possession and kept Calgary’s offensive firepower from gaining traction. It worked: The Wranglers failed to register a single shot on goal in OT.

Beyond Tucson’s strangely lopsided percentages when going past regulation, there was another reason Potvin elected to go that route on a night that saw the Roadrunners’ best top-to-bottom performance in some time: Tucson’s light grasp on that seventh and final playoff spot in the Pacific Division. The Roadrunners ended the night maintaining their single-point lead on the San Jose Barracuda, who won in overtime Saturday.

A loss to Calgary, and the Roadrunners would have moved to the outside looking in; a loss in overtime or the shootout, and it would have been a dead heat. A win, which Potvin was clearly banking on, and Tucson still holds the cards, so to speak — if even by the smallest of margins.

Potvin admits that it sounds cliché, but he said he’s not one to look too deep down the schedule, even as it gets shorter by the day.

“Honestly, you know what? I gotta be honest: I’m tyring to do the best we can to not talk about any of that stuff,” he said. “We’re trying to be in the moment all the time, and we’re not looking at the standings — and I know that sounds like something a coach would say.

“We’re really looking at how we can improve our game. Not only from a team perspective, but from the individuals’ perspective.”

Still, with 12 games to play entering this week’s Tuesday-Wednesday two-fer with the Ontario Reign at home, the Roadrunners have barely a single chip they can afford to lose.

Tucson entered the Ontario series with 58 points. That’s:

Seven points behind the fifth-place Reign

Four points behind the sixth-place Bakersfield Condors

One point ahead of eighth-place San Jose

Seven points ahead of the ninth-place Henderson Silver Knights

Including the two games at Tucson Arena against Ontario, Tucson entered this week with seven of its final 12 games against teams in that mix. The Roadrunners also play one more against the last-place San Diego Gulls, two at the fourth-place Colorado Eagles this Saturday and Sunday, and a pair against the Texas Stars, who are tied for first in the Central Division.

Translation: Even with 85% of their 72-game schedule already gone, there’s still plenty left to play for — not only for the Roadrunners, but almost every team in the 10-team Pacific.

“It’s gonna come down to the wire” Tucson goaltender Tyler Parks before this week’s series with Ontario.

“If we can take these two games from (the Reign), it’s just gonna give us more ground on San Jose and try to catch Bakersfield and ... hopefully keep running up the table.”