Calgary Wranglers series preview: The top and bottom of the Pacific duke it out
7 months ago
After a brief two-game homestand, the Calgary Wranglers are on the road this weekend to face the San Jose Barracuda. While they are still without Dustin Wolf and now Nick DeSimone, they have received one of their top scorers back this week in Matt Coronato. This ever-changing lineup will take on the struggling San Jose Sharks affiliate on Friday and Saturday night.
Projected lineups
Calgary
Dryden Hunt – Ben Jones – Matt Coronato
Rory Kerins – Cole Schwindt – Adam Klapka
Emilio Pettersen – Mitch McLain – William Stromgren
Lucas Ciona – Ilya Nikolaev – Mark Duarte
Jonathan Aspirot – Colton Poolman
Will Riedell – Brady Lyle
Yan Kuznetsov – Mark Pysyk
Oscar Dansk
Connor Murphy
San Jose
Danil Gushchin – Cole Cassels – Nathan Todd
Thomas Bordeleau – Jacob Peterson – Ethan Cardwell
Ozzy Wiesblatt – Brett Kemp – Scott Sabourin
Connor MacEachern – Bradley Marek – Brandon Coe
Nikolai Knyzhov – Leon Gawanke
Valtteri Pulli – Radim Simek
Shakir Mukhamadullin – Nick Cicek
Georgi Romanov
Eetu Makiniemi
Leaders
Calgary
Ben Jones – 22GP, 7G, 12A
Adam Klapka – 22GP, 9G, 9A
Matt Coronato – 14GP, 8G, 10A
San Jose
Danil Gushchin – 20GP, 7G, 12A
Ethan Cardwell – 20GP, 6G, 9A
Leon Gawanke – 21GP, 4G, 11A
Notes and expectations
This week in roster updates, there are a few moves between the NHL, AHL, and ECHL teams. On December 12th, the organization announced that Nick DeSimone was getting called back up to the Flames. This was pretty well associated with Chris Tanev’s injury early in their game against the Colorado Avalanche at the start of the week.
Matt Coronato was also sent back down to the Wranglers. He played in one game during this call-up and will develop best if he’s still getting games in if there is not a spot for him on the Flames roster at this point in the season. Not to say that closes the door on future call-ups by any means. Hopefully, his AHL confidence picks up where it left off and he can continue to be that main next-man-up option as far as forwards go.
The trickle effect of these moves down to the ECHL was minimal with Keltie Jeri-Leon being released from his PTO on December 13th. He will rejoin the Rapid City Rush. Coming up from Rapid City this week was defenceman Jared Gourley. Gourley has moved up and down in the organization multiple times this season but has yet to skate in a game with the Wranglers.
Looking ahead at this weekend’s match-up, there could not be much more of a spread between the standings of these two Pacific Division teams. The Wranglers at the top get two games against the bottom of the Pacific this weekend. Even with a Calgary roster that is heavily utilized by their parent NHL team this year, there is no reason why the Wranglers should not take both games this weekend. Overall, the Wranglers are chasing the Hershey Bears for the top spot in the league and the Barracuda are third from the bottom of the league.
A shining point among the team’s success despite the frequent call-ups is the additional opportunities for Rory Kerins. Kerins did not have a starting spot on this team at the beginning of the season and did not skate in a game for Calgary this year until November 3rd. Fast forward to mid-December and he is well past his days of watching his team play from the press box.
Kerins started his season with a point per game in his first five games. He is also on an active five-game point streak with seven points in his last five games. He has played his way up to the Wranglers’ second line and is a point machine for this squad. Kerins has been credited with four game-winners on the season and is closing in on the top three scoring for the team, just two points behind Coronato and Klapka.
The Kerins scoring streak watch will continue this weekend with their series kicking off on Friday at 8:00 p.m. MT and continuing into Saturday for a slightly earlier start at 7:00 p.m. MT. You can stream these games for a fee on AHL.tv or take advantage of this week’s flash sales on the platform if you have not purchased a streaming package. FlamesNation contributors Mike Gould and I will have updates on X (formerly Twitter).
This article is presented to you by BK Bowfort Liquor Store!
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