After their weekend split, the Barracuda remain in fourth place with 15 games remaining.
Over the course of the past week, not too much has changed for the San Jose Barracuda and their quest for the Calder Cup playoffs in their inaugural season. San Jose hosted the Bakersfield Condors, top affiliate of the Edmonton Oilers, in a pair of contests at SAP Center last weekend.
With San Jose looking to distance themselves from Bakersfield, the two teams split the weekend games as the gap remains three points between the two clubs in the Pacific Division.
It began on Saturday night with the Condors jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first period as the Barracuda were asleep early on. However, Nikolay Goldobin was able to pull one back with just 16 seconds left in the opening frame as he fired home his 14th of the season off a feed from Jeremy Langlois.
Despite outplaying Bakersfield for much of the of the middle frame, a bad pinch from Mirco Mueller allowed the Condors to re-establish their two-goal advantage.
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After Aaron Dell made the initial save, he couldn’t corral a loose puck which found its way to Matthew Ford for his 22nd goal of the year for Bakersfield.
The Goldobin-Langlois connection would combine once again as Goldobin would deposit a Langlois rebound for his second tally of the night, but it wouldn’t be enough in the end as the Barracuda would fall by a 3-2 final.
A little more than 24 hours later, the two teams were back at it, but this time, it was San Jose who would strike first. In a chippy affair, Petter Emanuelsson would steal a pass and score his seventh of the season to give the Barracuda the early lead.
After the Condors struck back, it was Emanuelsson again who took a feed from Ryan Carpenter and scored his second of the night. But once again, Bakersfield answered back to tie things up heading into the third period.
But this time, the Barracuda would take the lead for good as John McCarthy scored his 12th of the season with less than five minutes remaining for the eventual game-winner. Joel Rumpel, making his first start for San Jose, made 24 saves and Jeremy Morin added an empty-netter as the Barracuda took home a 4-2 victory.
It was a big two points for San Jose as they were able to maintain their advantage over Bakersfield in the division standings with only 15 games remaining in the regular season.
Next: Couture, Reimer Lead Sharks Past Oilers
The Barracuda are back in action tonight in Stockton for a pivotal contest against the Heat, top affiliate of the Calgary Flames.
Over the weekend, San Jose travels to San Diego for another big matchup against the Gulls before returning to host the division-leading Ontario Reign, top affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings, on Sunday night.