Recap: Calgary Wranglers complete weekend sweep of Eagles in 5-3 win
1 year ago
The Calgary Wranglers finished up their busy week of hockey with an evening game on Sunday night. This was the back half of their series against the Colorado Eagles after beating them 2-1 in overtime on Friday night. Sunday’s game was a lot less of a nailbiter with the Wranglers scoring early and winning this one 5-3.
Game at a glance
Emilio Pettersen returned to the lineup after serving his one-game suspension on Friday. He had a great game too, netting one of the five Wranglers goals and even after taking a stick to the face and drawing a double minor call, he returned to the ice late in the third with cotton up his nose and a bubble cage on to finish up the game.
Dustin Wolf had less pressure on him this game too as Friday night was quite the goaltending battle with the scoring occurring quite late in the game. Wolf made his fourth straight start with Oscar Dansk still week-to-week with a lower body injury. Wolf was backed up by Daniil Chechelev.
The Wranglers got things started early with a goal by Cole Schwindt. This was Schwindt’s first goal in 11 games. His last goal was back on January 21st against the Abbotsford Canucks. Schwindt scored off a feed from Radim Zohorna and opened up the scoring only 1:32 into the game. Jeremie Poirier also assisted.
The momentum continued in the Wranglers’ direction through the first and Clark Bishop scored a shorthanded goal 12:53 into the period. Ilya Solovyov earned the lone assist on Bishop’s sixth goal of the year.
About two minutes later, the Wranglers found themselves on a power play and Emilio Pettersen scored his 15th goal of the season with a shot through traffic. Matthew Phillips and Jeremie Poirier assisted.
That ended the scoring through the first period and it had a mix of almost every type of goal you could ask for. One even-strength goal, one shorthanded goal and one power-play goal. The Wranglers went into the first intermission up 3-0 and leading 13-9 in shots.
In the second period, things slowed down a bit and the Eagles came out with a bit more jump. The whole game had a pretty good pace to it but the Wranglers seemed pretty comfortable with their lead. The Eagles got their first goal on the board 8:26 into the period and the score was up to 3-1 Calgary.
They would go on to answer back before the end of the frame with a power play goal from Connor Zary. Zary is up to three straight games with points and on this one Walker Duehr and Radim Zohorna assisted.
The second ended with the Wranglers still ahead but with an updated score of 4-1. Calgary still led in shots 25-21. In the third, the Eagles were looking for a very early comeback. They scored 21 seconds into the period and brought the Wranglers lead down to 4-2.
The Wranglers didn’t let that goal go unanswered for long and regained their three goal lead with their third power play goal of the night off the stick of Mitch McLain. Matthew Phillips picked up his second assist of the night on this goal and Jeremie Poirier picked up his third assist of the night.
Later in the period, the Wranglers appeared to make the game 6-2 with a goal by Matthew Phillips but Clark Bishop was battling with an Eagles defender deep in the zone and ended up falling into the back of the net so the goal was called off.
There was a lot of tension between these two teams that built up through the game and in the dying minutes, it escalated even further. There weren’t any official fights or five minute major calls but a lot of roughing ad pushing and shoving. In the heat of one of these flair-ups, the Eagles broke out into the Wranglers zone and scored with 27 seconds to go in regulation.
The Wranglers’ goal cushion prevented this from doing much damage and they finished up the game winning 5-3 and sweeping the series. Shots ended 39-25 for Calgary. Jeremie Poirier picked up the first star of the night, Matthew Phillips picked up the second star and Emilio Pettersen picked up the third. Dustin Wolf also hit 30 wins on the season and is the first goaltender in the league to do so.
Highlights
Failed to load video.
Next up
The Wranglers have a couple of days to rest, practice and recuperate before their next home game on Wednesday evening. They will finish up their six game homestand with a back-to-back midweek series against the Henderson Silver Knights. The only team they’ve played this year so far that has a winning record against them. Wednesday’s game is set to start at 7:00 p.m. MT.
Recent articles from Paige Siewert
