Tucson Roadrunners' tough guy Travis Barron finds scoring stride with 1st AHL hat trick

But that all changed last weekend. Barron lit the lamp — a lot — at Tucson Arena.

Barron, who had a team leading eight fights in 2022-23, scored four goals in the Roadrunners’ sweep of the San Jose Barracuda last Friday and Saturday nights, including his first American Hockey League hat trick on Saturday.

“It felt good. You know it’s hard to do and I’m proud of myself for that,” Barron said. “Scoring goals is great and luckily three went by and you gotta just enjoy it while you can.”

Barron, who scored seven goals last year, said “100%” scoring a hat trick feels cooler when your role isn’t necessarily to score.

“I think it impacts our room and it impacts him very positively that if you stay on the course and you do the right things, you respect the game the way he does, you get respect back,” Tucson head coach Steve Potvin Said. “He’s earned his respect off the ice and earned his respect on the ice and it’s nice to see him get rewarded for the hard work that he’s put in.”

Barron has 24 AHL goals in his career, in 189 games. Before Saturday he had scored more than one goal in a single game just one time.

The Brampton, Ontario, Canada, native has five goals in 20 games this season. In 2021-22 he had a career high 12 with Tucson.

“I feel like Bear gets credit for having a good game last game because he was productive. But if you look over the last two or three weeks I’m really happy with his game,” Potvin said. “He’s just made a point of putting more pressure on himself to be a harder on the stick in those dirty areas, so honestly I’ve liked his game for the last couple weeks.

We hope that it continues away from the puck the way it has been.”

Potvin, Barron and Tucson (12-6-1-1) travel to Colorado (9-8-3-0) for a two-game series starting on Friday.

Barron spent some time with the Eagles in their last season in the ECHL and then played parts of three seasons for the Loveland, Colorado-based club when they moved up to the AHL.

“It was good. I was a young man there. I just started my pro career in Colorado and in Utah and it feels like forever ago when that was but it’s gonna be exciting going back there,” Barron said.

Tucson is left for Colorado a day early to accumulate to the altitude better and practice there before.

“It’s a cool building to play in, so we’re gonna be excited and we’re hopefully gonna continue this hot streak,” Barron said.

Tucson is on a five-game point streak, going 4-0-1-0. They have at least a point in 11 of their last 14.

As of press time, the Roadrunners are in seventh in the league with 26 points overall and seventh in the AHL with 15 points earned on the road. Tucson was fourth in the division heading into Thursday night’s games.

Going into the San Jose series, Tucson was ranked No. 29 in the league in goals with 44 over 18 games. After scoring 12 goals against the Barracuda last weekend, the Roadrunners enter the weekend up to 22nd overall.

“It’s nice when the floodgates kinda finally open,” Barron said. “It’s part of the game. It’s streaky, so hopefully those pucks keep going in the back of the net."

Barron’s last hat trick was historic.

“That one was crazy,” Barron said. “That was a few years back now and yeah, it was three short handed goals and that was the last time I did it, so like I said, it’s not very often but you gotta enjoy it while you can.”

Barron’s last hat trick came when he scored four for the Utah Grizzlies of the ECHL on May 4, 2021. Three of the goals were short handed, tying the league record, and one was on the power play.

After four seasons going back and forth from the AHL to ECHL, mostly from Colorado to Utah, Barron settled in at Tucson and has stayed in the AHL. This is Barron’s third year in the Old Pueblo.

“He’s an identity guy for us," Potvin said. "Those are sometimes just words you throw out there but an identity person for us means a lot.

"It means that our young guys are insulated, it means that our young guys have good people that they can look up to.”

Slap shots

The Colorado trip starts a segment of the season where the Roadrunners will play 10 of their next 14 games on the road.

Tucson is 7-2-1-0 on the road entering Friday night.