Recap: Calgary Wranglers come up short in special teams scoring battle
1 year ago
The Calgary Wranglers hosted the Henderson Silver Knights on Wednesday night for the first of three games these two teams will play against each other this week. It was a back and fourth scoring battle that took things outside of regulation, but Henderson would score the game-winner in overtime and further extend their lead on the season series. The final score was 5-4 in overtime for the away team.
Lineup notes
Walker Duehr was called back up to the Flames prior to this series so Alex Gallant slotted into the lineup in his place. So far, there haven’t been any call-ups from the Rapid City Rush to backfill Duehr. Typically, Rory Kerins or Ilya Nikolaev have been the usual reinforcements. However, both were listed as injured for a minimum of four weeks back on Feb. 10.
The Wranglers also announced on Wednesday that they added another goaltender to their mix on a professional tryout. This goaltender is Garrett Metcalf, who has played the season with the ECHL’s Utah Grizzlies.
Metcalf has played in 13 games this season and has a 7-3-1 record. His GAA sits at 3.95 and his save percentage is .888.
Game at a glance
Scoring and special teams were the names of the game in this first game of the week between the Wranglers and Silver Knights. Each period came with a list of penalties and ensuing goals to accompany them. The first period had a total of seven penalties split between both sides. Four were dealt to the Wranglers and three were dealt to the Silver Knights. The second Henderson penalty would be where Calgary opened scoring on the power play.
Nick DeSimone passed the puck over to Connor Zary on the wing for him to take a shot and sneak it past the Henderson netminder five hole. This goal came 8:29 into the first period and Radim Zohorna picked up the secondary assist.
A few minutes later, some early tensions built up between these two teams and boiled over into quite a scrap between Alex Gallant and Maxim Marushev. Gallant held his own very well in this tilt but was a little worse for wear by the end of it.
At the end of 20 minutes, the Wranglers lead 1-0 despite being outshot by Henderson 13-8. Early in the second period, the Silver Knights evened things up with an elevated shot over Dustin Wolf. This power play goal came just 42 seconds into the second frame.
Alex Gallant got tied up in another fight with a different Silver Knight player a couple of minutes into the second and was dealt 17 penalty minutes including a game misconduct, fighting major and an unsportsmanlike conduct call for removing his helmet.
3:10 after the first goal the same Henderson goalscorer, Sheldon Rampal, would score again. This time on an even-strength goal and just like that, the Silver Knights took their first lead of the night.
The Wranglers were the next to score with a power play goal from Emilio Pettersen 6:52 into the period. Pettersen placed a beautiful bar down shot that evened things up. Jeremie Poirier and Matthew Phillips assisted.
Henderson didn’t let things stay tied for long, as they scored again 8:44 into the second with their second power play goal of the night. Calgary continued to keep up and Pettersen scored again 12:03 into the period in a very similar fashion with a bar down power play goal. Ben Jones and Brett Sutter assisted.
The last eight minutes of the period played out with only one more penalty call and no more scoring. At the end of two, the Wranglers and Silver Knights were deadlocked at three with Henderson out-shooting Calgary 27-14.
That would not be the end of the scoring battle with the Silver Knights regaining the lead with a power play goal 5:54 into the third period. The Wranglers were put into more of a scramble mode to answer back before the end of regulation and ended up scoring 16:31 into the third with a goal by Yan Kuznetsov.
Kuznetsov got a shot off through traffic and Colton Poolman and Mitch McLain assisted. This would allow the Wranglers to hold on through regulation and pick up a point in Wednesday’s match-up. They outshot the Silver Knights 20-10 in the third.
In overtime, both sides struggled to get shots off and the first Henderson shot in the extra frame at 2:38 would turn into the game-winner. Henderson won this game 5-4 in OT and out-shot Calgary 39-35.
The penalties came in bunches for this game and Henderson finished the night with 36 penalty minutes and went 3-for-7 on the power play. Calgary finished up with 48 penalty minutes and went 3-for-6 on the power play.
Highlights
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Next up
The Wranglers have a quick turnaround after this battle as they will face the Silver Knights once again on Thursday night. This will be the second of three games these two will play against each other this week with the third closing the series on the weekend in Henderson, NV. The Silver Knights are now up 3-1 on the season series and their next match-up is set to start at 7:00 p.m. MT at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
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