Calgary Wranglers series preview: Long weekend road trip against the Canucks
5 months ago
The Calgary Wranglers wrapped up a four-game homestand earlier this week and start a four-game road trip on Saturday evening. Their first opponent will be the Abbotsford Canucks. The Canucks and Wranglers have seen each other six times this year and the Wranglers hold a winning record against them at 4-1-1-0. They last saw each other in late December in Calgary and split the series.
Projected lineups
Calgary
Emilio Pettersen – Ben Jones – Matt Coronato
Adam Klapka – Cole Schwindt – Rory Kerins
Mitch McLain – Brett Sutter – William Stromgren
Lucas Ciona – Ilya Nikolaev – Alex Gallant
Ilya Solovyov – Jonathan Aspirot
Colton Poolman – Yan Kuznetsov
Sam Jardine – Brady Lyle
Dustin Wolf
Oscar Dansk
Abbotsford
Arshdeep Bains – John Stevens – Vasily Podkolzin
Aatu Raty – Max Sasson – Linus Karlsson
Aidan McDonough – Cooper Walker – Marc Gatcomb
Jermaine Loewen – Chase Wouters – Danila Klimovich
Nick Cicek – Jett Woo
Matt Irwin – Cole McWard
Quinn Schmiemann – Kannok Leipert
Nikita Tolopilo
Arturs Silovs
Leaders
Calgary
Matt Coronato – 34 GP, 14G, 22A
Ben Jones – 46GP, 15G, 16A
Emilio Pettersen – 46GP, 7G, 21A
Abbotsford
Arshdeep Bains – 42GP, 9G, 30A
Max Sasson – 37GP, 13G, 14A
Linus Karlsson – 32GP, 10G, 17A
Notes and expectations
The Wranglers lost and gained a few players since their last game on Wednesday. Dan Vladar has been activated off IR and Dustin Wolf has been reassigned to the Wranglers. Cole Schwindt has also returned to the AHL and was swapped out for Dryden Hunt. Hunt has skated in two games since coming back from injury and has put up two assists.
An interesting note on the other end of the rink is the buzz around Phil Kessel by the Canucks’ organisation. The three-time Stanley Cup Champion has been a UFA all season and skated with Abbotsford this week. He’s still unsigned, but these workouts are drumming up rumours of a possible signing. He probably won’t play against the Wranglers this weekend. However, if a signing happens quickly, a conditioning stint with the AHL affiliate might not be out of the question.
Head to head, this series is pretty evenly matched. The Wranglers and Canucks are usually near the top of the Division and both have faced their share of transactions with their NHL parent team. This has resulted in a more modest place in the standings at this point in the season. The Wranglers sit at third in the Pacific Division going into this series and the Canucks sit at fifth in the Division.
In the last ten games, these teams have had similar results. The Wranglers have gone 3-5-0-2 in their last 10 games and the Canucks have gone 4-4-1-1 in their last ten. Both teams are coming off a one-goal loss and only one of them will continue their losing skid for at least one more game.
This series kicks off on Saturday night at 8:00 p.m. MT and continues for a Family Day matinee at 3:00 p.m. MT. 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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