Roster shuffled and road-ready, Roadrunners open 2023-24 AHL season this weekend at Texas

The Roadrunners played one preseason game, at Henderson last Friday night, and went right back to Tucson Saturday early morning. Then, early this week, they went to the Phoenix area before leaving for Texas on Wednesday afternoon.

Like last year when they spent a full week in Las Vegas, head coach Steve Potvin said he likes the chance for the team to connect in the early season.

“It’s good for our guys to bond on the road. I think everybody gets to know each other,” Potvin said. “There’s some really good learning situations that come up on the road and you’re able to weed through those early on and so I always think it’s a positive.”

Disney on Ice (featuring "Frozen" and "Encanto") takes over Tucson Arena Thursday to Sunday.

Potvin said he "thought the preseason game went really well," although Tucson lost to the Silver Knights 3-2 after a shootout.

“Obviously nobody likes to lose, and I’m going to use the words of our (general manager) John Ferguson: ‘when you win in a shootout you feel good about your game and when you lose in a shootout, it’s just human nature to not feel great about it.’

“Upon review I saw a lot of really good detail shine through in the game and it’s a real positive sign of good things to come.”

Free TV

Tucson's two-game season-opening series at Texas — games against the Stars in Cedar Park, Texas, are 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday — will be available to watch for free as the league is offering free streaming via AHLtv during the opening weekend.

AHLtv offers a choice of home or visitor commentary and can be watched via web browser or with Apple TV, Roku, Android TV and Amazon Fire TV.

The Roadrunners will host a free watch party for the season opener Dave & Buster’s.

It will start at 5 p.m. at the 1390 East Tucson Marketplace location.

Ivan the gone

On Sunday the NHL's Arizona Coyotes waived goalie Ivan Prosvetov for the purposes of sending him back to the Roadrunners, but the Colorado Avalanche claimed the Russian before he cleared waivers.

Prosvetov made his Tucson debut on Oct. 19, 2019. He ranks second all-time in Roadrunners wins (54), saves (3,347), shutouts (4) and minutes (7,161) and payed in 125 games for the Roadrunners.

“He had a strong impact, there’s no doubt,” Potvin. “He played a longtime for us and so we’re happy for him to have the opportunity. We’re saddened that we’re missing an asset but that’s just part of the business.”

Roster settling

The Roadrunners’ roster features a lot of familiar faces.

Tucson’s training camp roster had 17 players return from last year out of 31. Seven of the remaining 14 played for Pacific Division rivals.

Then Arizona sent defenseman Victor Soderstrom, forward Zach Sanford, defenseman Maksymilian Szuber and forward Dylan Guenther to Tucson. Soderstrom played for the Coyotes and Roadrunners last year, Sanford played for the Nashville Predators and Milwaukee Admirals last season and in 2022-23 Szuber played for Munich EHC in Germany.

Guenther played for the Coyotes and Seattle Thunderbirds in juniors last year. Arizona picked Guenther ninth overall in the 2021 draft.

“Right now we’re really happy with the type of people that we have in the locker room,” Potvin said. “I think the management did a nice job of bringing in some strong character people that are team orientated. So far they’ve been showing really good character traits and we’re looking forward to seeing what they have on the ice.”

The Coyotes’ globetrotting preseason featured games in Australia, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Wichita, Kansas, Texas, Las Vegas, Coachella Valley and Anaheim, before finishing in Tucson. That all may end up helping the Roadrunners. According to thehockeywriters.com, Arizona’s preseason travels were 21,441 miles.

Since Arizona was playing games on different sides of the world the Coyotes to use a bigger squad and split it, giving more playing time to future Roadrunners.

Ferguson, who is also the Roadrunners’ general manager, said on the Roadrunners Happy Hour radio show that it’s a “huge advantage” to give players more looks again NHL level competition.

“On (one) Saturday, we had three different teams playing, across the world on that date,” Ferguson said. “We ended up playing five games in two calendar days on two separate continents, experience is tremendous.”

El Lazo y Los Diablitos De Sunnyside

Last week the Roadrunners announced that Roberto Martinez and Mariachi Los Diablitos De Sunnyside High School are their El Lazo de Tucson Community Partner of the Year.

The Roadrunners honored Martinez, their director, during the first intermission of Saturday’s Coyotes/Ducks NHL preseason game at Tucson Arena.

Los Diablitos performs at places like the University of Arizona, Banner Children’s Hospital, Jewish History Museum, FC Tucson Soccer games, Red Cross of Tucson and the Jewish History Museum.