The luck of the Irish not on the side of the Barracuda as they lose at home 6-2

Photo courtesy of San Jose Barracuda. Thomas Bordeleau skates in to the Stars end.

By Titus Wilkinson (@TitusWisme)

SAN JOSE- Saint Patrick’s day was not kind to the Barracuda at home as they lost to the Texas Stars by a final of 6-2.

For San Jose Strauss Mann got the nod to start while Remi Poirier was in-between the pipes for Texas.

The Stars in this one quickly found themselves down a man as Riley Barber was called for a slash just 4:04 into the game.

San Jose’s penalty kill was up to the task and did not give up a special teams goal.

Two more penalties were called in the first period one against each team but, all were killed off.

The first goal of this hockey game took a while to come but 19:42 into the period Curtis McKenzie scored his 17th goal of the season giving the Stars the lead.

That ended up being the only goal of the first with the shots at the end of the period favoring Texas 13-12.

In the second the teams continued to exchange penalties with Adam Raska taking a penalty and Rhett Gardner taking the other.

While the Stars could not score on their power play the Barracuda did as Danil Gushchin tipped home a shot from Martin Kaut tying the game up at one.

Not long after the goal the Stars responded as less than three minutes later Riley Tufte scored his 13th goal of the season to take the lead right back.

Late in the period though with less than a minute left Jeffrey Viel battling out front found the loose puck and shoveled it home tying the game at two.

The shots at the end of the second favored Texas 31-20.

Despite the late goal in the second the Barracuda did not come out looking great as just 45 seconds in Riley Damiani scored for Texas making it a 3-2 game.

The quick goal seemed to rattle San Jose as less than five minutes later Riley Tufte scored extending Texas’s lead to 4-2.

The scoring slowed for a bit on both sides but 15:19 into the third Matej Blumel scored his 19th goal on the year pretty much putting the game away.

San Jose did pull their goalie but Curtis McKenzie put away any hope of a comeback by scoring on the empty net to finalize the score at 6-2.

The shots at the end of the game favored Texas 47-34.

The three stars of the game were 1st: Riley Tufte 2nd: Artemi Kniazev 3rd: Danil Gushchin

San Jose’s next game will be tomorrow at home against these same Stars at 6 p.m.