The San Jose Barracuda is a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL) which began play in the 2015-16 season. Affiliated with the National Hockey League's San Jose Sharks, the Barracuda shares the SAP Center with its parent club.
The Barracuda is a relocation of the former Worcester Sharks AHL franchise, it joined several other AHL franchises to form the AHL's Pacific Division in 2015.
Video San Jose Barracuda
History
On January 29, 2015, the San Jose Sharks announced that they would be moving their AHL affiliate, the Worcester Sharks, to San Jose, California, as one of five charter members of the AHL's new Pacific Division. The team would play at the SAP Center at San Jose, being one of two of the current AHL teams to share a home arena with its parent club (along with the Manitoba Moose sharing Bell MTS Place with their parent Winnipeg Jets).
On April 1, 2015, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported that the Sharks had signed a multi-year presenting sponsorship with Barracuda Networks to be the AHL team's presenting sponsor; the team name would be called the San Jose Barracuda and the reported team logo would feature the corporate logo in the background. Neither the Sharks nor Barracuda would comment, however, they stated that an official announcement would come later in the week. The name and logo were confirmed the next day in a joint press release.
Friday October 9, 2015 marked the first official game in Barracuda history. They took on the Rockford IceHogs at home, coming up on the losing end of a 4-2 score. Micheal Haley scored the first ever franchise goal while on a power play in the first period. The Barracuda picked up the first win in franchise history while visiting the Stockton Heat on October 15, 2015 by a score of 4-1.
On February 10, 2016, head coach Roy Sommer broke the record for most wins as an AHL coach, picking up his 637th win against the Ontario Reign by the score of 4-2.
The Barracuda finished the season 31-26-8-3. Its .527 winning percentage meant that it was matched up against the Ontario Reign during the Pacific Division semifinals. After splitting the first two games of the best-of-five series, the Barracuda came out on the losing end of game three by a 3-1 score, and also lost game four by a score of 4-1 to end their season. Bryan Lerg and Nikolay Goldobin led the team in goals with 21, while Ryan Carpenter had a team high 55 points. Goaltender Aaron Dell played a team high 40 games in net for the Barracuda, while winning 17 of them. The team's average attendance of 4,412 placed them 24th of 30 in the AHL.
The Barracuda's 2016-17 season would be more successful than its first season, winning 14 consecutive games from January 15 to March 1 and winning the Pacific Division and Western Conference. Goaltender Troy Grosenick won the "Baz" Bastien Award as the AHL's outstanding goaltender. The Barracuda made it to the Western Conference finals during the 2017 Calder Cup playoffs before being eliminated by the Grand Rapids Griffins four-games-to-one.
Maps San Jose Barracuda
Season-by-season records
Players
Current Roster
Updated January 23, 2018.
References
External links
- San Jose Barracuda Official Website
Source of article : Wikipedia
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