Defenseman, locker-room leader Dysin Mayo now Roadrunners’ No. 1 in career games

And to know Mayo’s personality, at least off the ice, is to know that he wouldn’t really want it any other way.

On Jan. 7, in a 6-1 home loss to the Colorado Eagles, Mayo became Tucson’s career leader in games played — his 261st career regular-season appearance in a Roadrunners’ sweater, passing former teammate Michael Bunting in the process.

“I’ve been around this league for a while now,” Mayo said. “You kind of see each year there’s a big rollover, and not many guys stay with the same organization this long. And if they do, they’re getting called up a lot or whatnot. So they don’t play as many games in one AHL city.

“So looking at it that way, I’m proud of the way I’ve conducted myself through my career — that the organization has wanted to keep me around.

“I’ve gone through three (NHL) GMs now, a bunch of different coaches. The fact I’m still here, that’s the character I wanted to bring when I came and turned pro, and through my whole life.”

Mayo’s run as a Roadrunner, which should be at 273 games come the start of Tucson’s 4 p.m. faceoff Sunday at Tucson Arena against the Abbotsford Canucks, could be considered older than the Roadrunners franchise itself.

In his first taste of professional hockey, Mayo, signed to an entry-level deal by the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes and assigned to the AHL, played five games for the then-Springfield Falcons near the end of the 2015-16 season. That offseason, the Coyotes and the AHL agreed to move the Falcons to Tucson, rebranded them as the Roadrunners and started just about everything (including team record books) anew.

Mayo was one of a handful of Falcons to come with the team to Tucson, and his entire 381-game professional career — which includes 25 games in the ECHL and 80 NHL appearances over the last two seasons with the Coyotes — have all come with Mayo under contract with the now Tempe-based big-league club.

Including playoff games, the Roadrunners have taken the ice 407 times over seven seasons. In the coming weeks, Mayo is on track have appeared in 70% of all games played in team history — a number made more remarkable considering he spent the equivalent of more than a full AHL season away on his first NHL recall.

Named the Roadrunners’ captain ahead of what would have been his sixth season in Tucson at the start of the 2021-22 schedule, Mayo played in just two games for the Roadrunners last season, both with the “C” on his chest. Early Coyotes’ needs and a bevy of roster shuffling led to Mayo’s first NHL call-up, six years into his pro career, and he spent the rest of the season with Arizona. The organization rewarded him with a three-year, one-way contract extension last spring.

This year, he was with the Coyotes the first two months of the schedule but saw action in only 13 games. With Mayo a healthy scratch more often than not this season, the Coyotes took a risk and placed him on waivers, with the intent of sending him back to his first real pro hockey home — Tucson — to get him everyday game action. He cleared waivers and was back in a Roadrunners jersey Dec. 17.

“Yeah, it was mixed emotions,” Mayo said. “I mean obviously I wasn’t playing up there. I wasn’t getting any ice. So I was at least happy I was going to start playing again, because at the end of the day, that’s what you want to be doing.

“I’m just competitive. After sitting so many games in a row, you start getting frustrated and want to play again.”

Roadrunners coach Steve Potvin, who as an assistant before becoming Tucson’s head coach, has been with Mayo virtually their entire time with the team. Potvin calls Mayo “just one of those guys” he can’t help but want in his locker room.

“He’s such a good leader and such a good guy,” Potvin said. “From that standpoint, we’re excited to have him here, because he helps.

“But we all wish he wasn’t here,” Potvin added — the implication that it’s hard for him not to root for Mayo to get back to the NHL quickly, even if it means the Roadrunners lose out.

Potvin notes that Mayo’s progression through the ECHL with the Rapid City Rush for part of 2016-17, to the AHL with Tucson, to the NHL with the Coyotes — again, all under contract with Arizona — isn’t one that happens often.

“He’s a story for this franchise,” Potvin said. “At one point not many would have given him that chance or really think that he could be in the NHL. And the next thing you know, the opportunity strikes and he takes advantage of it. The window opened a little, he widened it and the rest is history.”

Fellow longtime Tucson blueliner Cam Dineen — who himself should play in his 200th game for the Roadrunners early next month — said that even at the NHL level, Mayo’s penchant for being a quiet leader shined. Dineen was called up a few weeks after Mayo’s early-season recall last year, and the two spent much of the remainder of the season together with the Coyotes.

“It was great to have him there and have that friend and familiar face,” Dineen said. “Also, he took that leadership role with me that he did when I was younger. He taught me some things up there and helped me integrate into the locker room.”

Mayo said he’s now living the conundrum that a number of now-former Roadrunners have tried to explain about playing in Tucson. As Bunting, Mayo’s former teammate and the player whose record he broke earlier this month once said, “No one on the team wants to be here … but everyone loves to be here, if that makes sense.”

It makes total sense, Mayo said, adding that as much as he loves Tucson itself, it’s Arizona as a whole that he and his Brittney have made their home.

Mayo is from Victoria, British Columbia. He arrived in Tucson at the age of 20. Since then, he and Brittney have gotten married, had two kids (Henry and Eloise) and now own a house in the Phoenix area — all wrapped by his time playing for the Roadrunners and, to a lesser but still meaningful extent, the Coyotes.

“Obviously the end goal is to be up there, but this isn’t a bad spot either,” said Mayo, now a grizzled veteran, all of 26 years old. “It’s hard sometimes to (remember) that because you’re not where you want to be. … Not that this isn’t where I want to be, but you know what I mean.”