Calgary Wranglers recap: Scoring goes quiet in first regulation loss of the season
8 months ago
The Calgary Wranglers and San Jose Barracuda continued their weekend series on Sunday. Calgary took a 1-0 win on Friday afternoon and looked for their sixth straight win in this match-up. The Wranglers rolled with the same lineup and unfortunately could not find a lot of scoring. They broke their winning streak and fell to the Barracuda 4-1.
Game at a glance
The Wranglers kept Dustin Wolf in net for this game and the Barracuda made a change between the pipes. Georgi Romanov started in net for San Jose as their opposing goaltender from Friday, Magnus Chrona, was called up to the Sharks. Chrona made his NHL debut in a relief scenario in their 10-2 loss to the Penguins on Saturday.
This game started without any shots on goal through the first five minutes. Instead, the first notable game activity would be a hooking call against the Wranglers. Brady Lyle sat in the box for this and about three-quarters of the way through their penalty kill, Jonathan Aspirot was on the receiving end of a high stick that drew blood and a double minor.
There was supposed to be a four on four for 27 seconds before the Wranglers would be on the power play but unfortunately, the Barracuda earned their first goal before the Wranglers found themselves on the power play. Cole Cassels was the last San Jose skater to touch the puck as he was attempting to make a pass that unfortunately deflected off of Yan Kuznetsov’s skate and into the back of the net. This goal came at 6:50 into the period.
A few minutes later, Lucas Ciona took the Wranglers’ energy into his own hands and got himself into a fight with Leon Gawanke. This was his first professional fight. He and his fighting partner took a seat and Rory Kerins also joined Ciona in the box to serve Ciona’s roughing call.
Calgary killed off this minor penalty and no further damage was done to the scoreboard in this period. At the end of 20 minutes, Calgary trailed San Jose 1-0 but had a 9-6 edge in shots. In the second, the game action consisted of a lot of back-and-forth rushes. Each side got a power play opportunity but did not capitalize on either. By the end of the second, the score remained 1-0 and the Wranglers out-shot their opponents 12-7 in the middle frame.
After going two full periods without a goal, the third didn’t start in the way the home team would have liked. Just 1:02 into the period, San Jose’s Danil Gushchin beat Dustin Wolf’s glove side on a bar-down shot. 58 seconds later, the two-goal lead extended into a three-goal lead when Tanner Kaspick picked the other corner and beat Wolf.
The home team was playing a bit stunned but were low on time to create some sort of comeback. They pulled Wolf with just shy of six minutes to go in regulation. They drew a penalty and had a 6-on-4 opportunity to try and generate some offence with the empty net. They held a lot of zone pressure in the dying minutes and it did get them one goal to break the shutout for their opposing goalie.
18:04 into the period, the Wranglers had a faceoff in the Barracuda zone that Ben Jones won, Rory Kerins got the puck and passed it up to Mitch McLain who scored the one and only goal for the Wranglers.
The Barracuda snuck one more in with 26 seconds to go off an empty net goal. Time wound down and the Wranglers fell 4-1 in this game. No Wranglers’ made it to the three stars Saturday afternoon and San Jose netminder Georgi Romanov picked up the first star for his 34 save afternoon.
Dustin Wolf faced 18 shots on the other end and had a bit of an uncharacteristic game. He didn’t have much offence to back him up and as a result, was handed his first loss of the season. This loss is also the first regulation loss the Wranglers have had all season. Not too bad when you’re eight games in.
Next up
This game will be one to learn from and then forget. They’ll have a few days to practice and reset and will hit the road next weekend for a split weekend series. They’ll face the San Diego Gulls on Friday night then the Coachella Valley Firebirds on Sunday. Friday’s game is set to start at 8:00 p.m. MT.
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