Calgary Wranglers series preview: The first AHL Battle of Alberta of the season
8 months ago
The affiliate teams of Alberta’s two NHL teams are duking it out for a mid-week match-up in Calgary. The Bakersfield Condors and Calgary Wranglers meet for the first time this season starting on Tuesday. Both have had to back-fill for the struggles of their NHL parent teams, but who remains on these rosters will hopefully make for an interesting series.
Projected lineups
Calgary
Dryden Hunt – Cole Schwindt – Matt Coronato
Rory Kerins – Ben Jones – Adam Klapka
Emilio Pettersen – Clark Bishop – Ilya Nikolaev
Lucas Ciona – Brett Sutter – Mitch McLain
Jordan Oesterle – Jonathan Aspirot
Ilya Solovyov – Brady Lyle
Yan Kuznetsov – Colton Poolman
Oscar Dansk
Connor Murphy
Bakersfield
Drake Caggiula – Greg McKegg – Xavier Bourgault
Adam Erne – Lane Pederson – Seth Griffith
Carter Savoie – Carl Malone – Dino Kambeitz
Matvey Petrov – Jayden Grubbe – Cameron Wright
Cam Dineen – Max Wanner
Philip Broberg – Philip Kemp
Markus Niemelainen – Noel Hoefenmayer
Jack Campbell
Olivier Rodrigue
Leaders
Calgary
Ben Jones – 10GP, 3G, 7A
Connor Zary – 6GP, 1G, 9A (inactive on NHL call-up)
Adam Klapka – 10GP, 5G, 3A
Bakersfield
Raphael Lavoie – 5GP, 4G, 3A (inactive on NHL call-up)
James Hamblin – 6GP, 3G, 2A (inactive on NHL call-up)
Sam Gagner – 3GP, 1G, 4A (inactive on NHL call-up)
Notes and expectations
In this hockey market, it’s impossible not to know the fact that the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers have been having a tough start to their year. As a result, they have relied on their AHL depth to bring in some new blood and hope for a better result on the scoreboard. A large storyline between these teams involves their goaltending.
Jack Campbell started the year with Edmonton and was only able to earn one win in five starts. His GAA of 4.50 is just not good enough to sustain a spot at the NHL level. As a result, the Oilers sent him down to Bakersfield. Even at the AHL level, his goaltending has not been good and in his last two games against Abbotsford, he registered the losses between the pipes and went viral for an embarrassing attempt at a save that slipped right between his glove and the post.
His confidence is in the dumps right now and the Wranglers are in a spot to capitalize on that. On their end, they did lose Dustin Wolf to an NHL call-up last weekend but with news that Jakob Markstrom is back practising again, he may be sent back down at some point in this series. If Wolf is not back, Oscar Dansk has been rising to the occasion in relief. He earned two wins between the pipes last weekend and sits at a 1.95 GAA and a .944 save percentage on the season.
Beyond the goaltending storyline, there are also gaps to consider. All of the Condors’ top three scorers are not with the team. The next active players in the team scoring stats have five or fewer points in the eight games the team has played this season. The Wranglers, on the other hand, got some depth scoring going last weekend and appear to have the advantage depth-wise. Ben Jones, Emilio Pettersen and Adam Klapka all seem to be heating up again at the perfect time.
This series kicks off on Tuesday evening and continues on the following evening on Wednesday. Both game times are set for 7:00 p.m. MT. You can catch these games in person at the Scotiabank Saddledome or stream them for a fee at AHL.tv. FlamesNation contributors Mike Gould and myself will have updates on X (formerly Twitter).
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