Calgary Wranglers Recap: Matt Coronato’s first AHL goal leads Wranglers to 1-0 win over the Barracuda
8 months ago
The rumours are true. Matt Coronato did get sent down to the AHL and did skate in the Wranglers’ Friday afternoon match-up against the San Jose Barracuda. Coronato’s lone goal carried the Wranglers to a 1-0 win and Dustin Wolf earned his first shutout of the season. This win put the Wranglers up to five straight wins and placed them at the top of the Pacific Division and second place in the entire league.
Roster moves
There has been a lot of roster action since the last time the Wranglers played. Earlier in the week, the Flames sent Ilya Solovyov back down to the Wranglers and called Connor Zary up. Zary skated in his first NHL game on Nov. 1 and scored his first NHL goal on the same night. There were a few more last-minute moves announced on game day too.
On Thursday, the Flames placed Jordan Oesterle on waivers. A couple of hours before game time, the Flames announced they called up Martin Pospisil and Nick DeSimone. They also sent down Matt Coronato and Oesterle cleared waivers and also made his way down to the Wranglers. Coronato, Oesterle, and Solovyov all skated in this game on Friday afternoon.
Wranglers lines
Rory Kerins – Cole Schwindt – Matthew Coronato
Emilio Pettersen – Ben Jones – Adam Klapka
Lucas Ciona – Clark Bishop – Mitch McLain
Alex Gallant – Brett Sutter – William Stromgren
Jonathan Aspirot – Jordan Oesterle
Ilya Solovyov – Brady Lyle
Yan Kuznetsov – Colton Poolman
Dustin Wolf
Game at a glance
Calgary and San Jose took to the ice on Friday afternoon with Magnus Chrona in net for the away team and Dustin Wolf in net for the Wranglers. Matthew Coronato and Jordan Oesterle both skated in their first game with the Wranglers and Rory Kerins skated in his first game with the team this year.
In just his second shift of the game, Matt Coronato opened the scoring and scored his first goal at the AHL level. It’s a fair assumption that this assignment with the Wranglers will be limited so it is good to see Coronato really hitting the ground running.
Coronato’s goal came at 4:07 into the first period and Rory Kerins wasn’t originally credited with a helper but has since earned an assist.
About six minutes later, Alex Gallant did what Alex Gallant does best and picked a partner to drop the gloves with. It wasn’t his best fight of the season but Scott Sabourin and him did put on a bit of a show that got better towards the end of the fight.
By the end of the first period, the Wranglers had a 1-0 lead and were outshooting their opponents 11-6. In the second period, the action slowed down and by the back half of the period, the Wranglers and Barracuda were trading penalties and ended up on a big 5-on-3 penalty kill in the last three minutes of the game. They were able to kill this penalty off without any damage to the scoreboard.
At the end of 40 minutes, the Wranglers still had a 1-0 lead and outshot the Barracuda 11-8 in the middle frame. In the third period, the slower pace continued and not a lot of large game activity took place. When San Jose was getting desperate for a goal late in the period, they pulled their goalie but ended up in the box after interfering with Wolf. That dimmed their chances of a comeback and time wound down with the Wranglers maintaining their lone goal lead.
All three stars of the afternoon went to Calgary players with Gallant earning the third star, Coronato earning the second star and Wolf earning the first star for his shutout performance. The Wranglers ended with a 35-27 shot advantage.
Next up
The Wranglers and Barracuda series continues on Sunday afternoon. The game time is an hour earlier with a 12:00 p.m. puck drop at the Scotiabank Saddledome. Calgary is on a five-game winning streak and looks to make it six by the end of the weekend.
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