Calgary Wranglers Game Day: Catching up with Coachella Valley
1 year ago
The Calgary Wranglers are on the road and looking to snap a three game losing skid with a match-up against the Coachella Valley Firebirds on Wednesday. They dropped all three of their games against the Henderson Silver Knights last week and the Firebirds have not been an easy opponent for them this season either. Their season series record sits at 2-4-0-0, but this match-up will just be one Wednesday night game so no opportunity to tie up the season series.
Projected lineups
Calgary
Matthew Phillips – Ben Jones – Emilio Pettersen
Connor Zary – Radim Zohorna – Cole Schwindt
Brett Sutter – Kevin Rooney – Adam Klapka
Mitch McLain – Clark Bishop – Alex Gallant
Connor Zary – Radim Zohorna – Cole Schwindt
Brett Sutter – Kevin Rooney – Adam Klapka
Mitch McLain – Clark Bishop – Alex Gallant
Ilya Solovyov – Nick DeSimone
Jeremie Poirier – Nicolas Meloche
Yan Kuznetsov – Colton Poolman
Jeremie Poirier – Nicolas Meloche
Yan Kuznetsov – Colton Poolman
Dustin Wolf
Daniil Chechelev
Daniil Chechelev
Coachella Valley
Forwards: Luke Henman, Alexander True, Tye Kartye, Austin Poganski, John Hayden, Kole Lind, Max McCormick, Carsen Twarynski, Cameron Hughes, Ian McKinnon, Andrew Poturalski, Tristan Mullin, Ville Petman, Jeremy McKenna
Defensemen: Jake McLaughlin, Peetro Seppala, Matt Tennyson, Eddie Wittchow, Gustav Olofsson, Brogan Rafferty, Ryker Evans, Jimmy Schuldt
Goaltenders: Christopher Gibson, Joey Daccord, Chris Driedger
Leaders
Calgary
Matthew Phillips – 47GP, 26G, 30A
Connor Zary – 53Gp, 17G, 31A
Ben Jones – 52GP, 11G, 30A
Coachella Valley
Max McCormick – 48GP, 21G, 28A
Jesper Froden – 44GP, 25G, 22A (inactive on NHL call-up)
Kole Lind – 49GP, 20G, 26A
Notes and expectations
Despite the fact these teams saw a lot of each other early in the season, they really haven’t faced off since. The two played four times in October and twice in November and haven’t seen each other since Nov. 24, when the Calgary Wranglers dropped their game against them by a score of 4-3.
Both these teams have been chasing each other for not only the title of the best new team of the 2022-23 season but also the best in the Pacific Division and the best in the league. Prior to their Henderson series, the Wranglers held these titles pretty consistently but have closed their standing gap slightly.
They still lead the Pacific Division with four games in hand to Coachella Valley. They have played 53 games this season so far and their record is 36-14-3-0. Coachella Valley has played 49 games and sits at a 34-9-4-2 record. Despite their recent struggles, the Wranglers still sit at first in the AHL with just the Toronto Marlies between them and Coachella Valley in the overall standings. The Firebirds are currently third in the league.
They are not expecting an easy match-up by any means but it would be as good of a time as ever to pull out a win to roll into their next weekend series. Calgary needs some better team performances in the next few games to get them back into the swing of their style of hockey.
Matthew Phillips only has two goals in the last 10 games but has been racking up assists consistently. Connor Zary was on a six game point streak with goals in three consecutive games but was held off the board in their last match-up. Their multi-point games have been held to a minimum as of late and no one is really taking off right now in the lineup. The question is going to be, whose turn is it to step up?
This series will just be one game on Wednesday, Mar. 1 in Thousand Palms, CA before the Wranglers head down to Colorado to face the Eagles this weekend. Wednesday’s game is set to start at 8:00 p.m. MT and you can stream it on AHL.TV. FlamesNation contributors Mike Gould and myself will have updates on Twitter.
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