Heat Post-Game: Dustin Wolf finishes San Jose series with a perfect record
2 years ago
Stockton and San Jose wrapped up their season series on Sunday evening as Stockton earned one last win against their fellow Pacific Division opponent. Dustin Wolf went for the win for back to back nights and Byron Froese, Connor Zary, and Justin Kirkland contributed on the scoresheet to win this road game by a score of 3-1.
Taking it easy
The Heat have shown their ability to score a ton of goals quite a few times this season. The common trend is that it is not usually followed up with the same level of production on the following night. After their 7-1 win on Saturday, their Sunday win was a more modest 3-1.
The first period didn’t bring any goal celebrations and only a shot differential of five with the Heat out-shooting the Barracuda 10-5. The only penalties called were a pair against the Heat they killed off.
They started to get things going in the third when Byron Froese opened up scoring 2:34 into the second when he got his stick on a rebound tight to the net.
Connor Zary followed up with a goal six seconds later with a pass off the draw from Johannes Kinnvall. Not a lot of work left to do the rest of the game when you score that quick back-to-back.
San Jose wasn’t able to make it to the scoresheet until the third period when they scored 1:38 into the last frame. This period was their best scoring effort of the game with them putting up 14 shots in this 20-minute segment. Within one was still too far of a comeback to make and the Heat added some fuel to the first late in the period when the Barracuda went for the extra attacker. Justin Kirkland took an attempt at the empty net and was successful, putting away this game in the last 57 seconds.
Dustin Wolf earned the first star of the night with his 27 save performance and shots finished up dead even at 28 a side.
The undefeated Wolf
With a stat line as impressive as Dustin Wolf’s this year, it is safe to say a lot of teams in the league have had their struggles scoring on number 32. The San Jose Barracuda especially. Wolf was between the pipes for eight of their 10 games against each other and he finished their series with a 1.50 GAA and a .957 save percentage.
He also reached a huge milestone in his win on Saturday night when he hit the 30 win mark on the season. He is the first rookie goaltender in the entire AHL to hit 30 wins since the 2000-01 season. I can’t emphasize enough how much this young netminder lives up to the hype.
Roster updates
A couple of absences from the Heat lineup drew some attention leading into this game. Juuso Valimaki and Adam Ruzicka did not dress and were not announced by the team as injuries. Nothing has been confirmed from the Flames yet, but these two could have been catching a flight to Los Angeles together to add some depth to the big club.
Connor Mackey has already gone up to Calgary so the next D-man in line would unsurprisingly be Valimaki. Neither of these call-ups are controversial by any means, but further confirmation remains to be seen in the next few days.
Free hockey
The Heat will get a break from mid-week games this week with their next game coming on Friday, Apr. 8 against the Ontario Reign. This is their first game against the Reign since Feb. 12. AHL.tv is offering this game as a game of the week so streaming is free of charge. Puck drop will be at 8:00 p.m. MT.
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