Calgary Wranglers series preview: Fighting for some points against the Firebirds
3 months ago
The Calgary Wranglers have another four-game week of hockey with all their games taking place on home ice. They’ll start the week hosting the Coachella Valley Firebirds on Tuesday and Wednesday. This year, they only have won against the Pacific Division’s best team once, so this will be a chance to hopefully continue the momentum from their big win on Sunday and get a few points out of this series.
Projected lineups
Calgary
Jakob Pelletier – Sam Morton – Ben Jones
William Stromgren – Cole Schwindt – Adam Klapka
Brett Sutter – Clark Bishop – Mitch McLain
Lucas Ciona – Riley Damiani – Jonathan Aspirot
Artem Grushnikov – Jordan Oesterle
Jeremie Poirier – Ilya Solovyov
Colton Poolman – Mark Pysyk
Oscar Dansk
Connor Murphy
Coachella Valley
Forwards – Luke Henman, John Hayden, Kole Lind, Max McCormick, Cameron Hughes, Ian McKinnon, Andrew Poturalski, Tucker Robertson, Ville Petman, Marian Studenic, Shane Wright, Jacob Melanson, Devin Shore
Defensemen – Peetro Seppala, Cale Fleury, Mitch Reinke, Ryan Jones, Gustav Olofsson, Ville Ottavainen, Jimmy Schuldt, Connor Carrick
Goaltenders – Ales Stezka, Chris Driedger
Leaders
Calgary
Matt Coronato – 40GP, 15G, 27A (Inactive on NHL call-up)
Ben Jones – 62GP, 20G, 21A
Adam Klapka – 56GP, 19G, 20A
Coachella Valley
Kole Lind – 58GP, 14G, 41A
Cameron Hughes – 58GP, 21G, 29A
Max McCormick – 57GP, 27G, 21A
Notes and expectations
The Wranglers have 10 games to go in the season including these two and need seven points to clinch a spot in the Calder Cup Playoffs. The Firebirds have already clinched a playoff spot and have their sights set on clinching the division and possibly the league, however, the Hershey Bears are the favourite for that. Both teams still have things to work towards so the the Firebirds will not be handing the Wranglers these games.
What the Wranglers do have on their side is depth. They have a lot of options up front and on the blue line. Especially now with it being signing season. As Pat Steinberg pointed out, Joni Jurmo will be joining the Wranglers on an amateur tryout for the remainder of the season. Word is Parker Bell is coming soon as well with his season in the WHL coming to an end.
Someone to watch going into this series is Mitch McLain. McLain had a hat trick against the Gulls and played his best game as a Wrangler and arguably one of his best professional games. Other players like Jakob Pelletier and Ilya Solovyvov had multi-point nights with Solovyov picking up two goals and Pelletier picking up a goal and two assists.
This series starts on Tuesday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome and continues into Wednesday for a back-to-back. Tickets are still available and you can follow along with the radio broadcast on The Fan 960. Streaming options are available for a fee on AHL.tv and both games are set to start at 7:00 p.m. MT. FlamesNation contributors Mike Gould and I will have updates on X (formerly Twitter).
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