Calgary Wranglers series preview: Chasing the Condors for playoff seeding
22 days ago
The Calgary Wranglers are in their last six games and wrap up their season series with the Bakersfield Condors this weekend. They’ve both clinched playoff spots but are right beside each other in the standings. Going into this two-game set, the Condors are in the sixth seed and the Wranglers are in the seventh seed. The results of this series will have an immediate effect on their playoff standings now that both of them have clinched.
Projected lineups
Calgary
Jakob Pelletier – Sam Morton – Adam Klapka
William Stromgren – Ben Jones – Mitch McLain
Clark Bishop – Cole Schwindt – Rory Kerins
Lucas Ciona – Brett Sutter – Jonathan Aspirot
Jeremie Poirier – Colton Poolman
Artem Grushnikov – Jordan Oesterle
Yan Kuznetsov – Ilya Solovyov
Connor Murphy
Oscar Dansk
Bakersfield
Dylan Holloway – Lane Pederson – Seth Griffith
Raphael Lavoie – Jayden Grubbe – Carter Savoie
Adam Erne – Greg McKegg – Matvey Petrov
Ty Tullio – Brad Malone – Cameron Wright
Philip Broberg – Philip Kemp
Cam Dineen – Max Wanner
Alex Peters – Ben Gleason
Olivier Rodrigue
Jack Campbell
Leaders
Calgary
Adam Klapka – 60GP, 20G, 23A
Ben Jones – 66GP, 21G, 21A
Matt Coronato – 40G, 15G, 27A (Inactive on NHL call-up)
Bakersfield
Seth Griffith – 61GP, 14G, 42A
Lane Pederson – 60GP, 21G, 28A
Raphael Lavoie – 59GP, 27G, 19A
Notes and expectations
The Wranglers have made a few roster updates in the last week. On Mar. 29, they signed goaltender Seth Eisele to an amateur tryout. Eisele has yet to play a game in the AHL but has spent the last five seasons in the NCAA, most recently with the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Eisele played in eight games this season and finished the year with a 2.37 goals against average and a .919 save percentage. He is on the Wranglers roster as number 30 but if he gets any game action, it likely won’t be until playoff positions are more set in stone.
A move also occurred within the organization included sending Ilya Nikolaev back down to the Rapid City Rush. Nikolaev was getting regular playing time when this roster was plagued with injuries and NHL call-ups, but since those have sorted themselves out, he has not seen a lot of playing time. Nikolaev last played on Mar. 16 and has played in 29 games with the Wranglers this season. He hasn’t scored a point since Feb. 10, however.
One more roster note includes the signing of centerman David Silye. Silye is also an NCAA product on an amateur tryout out of the University of Wisconsin. Silye was an alternate captain for his squad this year and put up 32 points in 40 games this year consisting of nine goals and 23 assists. He’s another player who likely won’t play this weekend, especially with the team carrying Parker Bell among their depth. If he does see some ice time, he will be wearing Nick DeSimone’s old number, number 27.
The Wranglers come into this series off a much-needed break. They last played on Easter Sunday and finally got some time this week to rest, refresh and clean things up in practice, especially after a gruelling two weeks of eight games. Bakersfield last played on Wednesday and beat the Roadrunners. The Wranglers fell to the Barracuda 4-1 in their last game
Head to head, these teams have had a pretty even year. The Wranglers are 3-2-0-1 against the Oilers affiliate, and unless they split this weekend, their two games will determine the season series winner. They last saw each other not too long ago for a back-to-back on Mar. 19 and 20 when they split in Calgary. The Wranglers won the first game 2-1 and the Condors won game two 3-2 in a shootout.
These divisional and organizational rivals will kick off their series in Bakersfield on Friday night and wrap things up on Saturday night. Both games have an 8:00 p.m. MT puck drop. You can stream these games for a fee on AHL.tv and FlamesNation contributors Mike Gould and I will have updates on X (formerly Twitter).
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