Recap: Calgary Wranglers couldn’t get enough eggs in the basket in Easter Sunday game
28 days ago
The Calgary Wranglers were fresh off the news of clinching a playoff spot and played the back half of their series against the San Jose Barracuda on Easter Sunday. They were the only game in the AHL and Calgary came out with a different agenda. To close the gap in the standings and place themselves in the best position possible for their first-round matchup. Unfortunately, they did not pull ahead any further and fell to San Jose 4-1.
Game at a glance
The changes going into this game were minimal with Oscar Dansk getting the start in net for the Wranglers and Lucas Ciona slotting into the lineup for Matthew Wedman. On the Barracuda’s side of the ice, Georgi Romanov was between the pipes for the visiting Barracuda.
The Wranglers got the first few chances of the game but it would be the Barracuda who got on the board first. Ethan Cardwell skated the puck into the zone and realized Calgary wasn’t defending him too hard so he took a shot on Dansk that went in. This goal came at 6:56.
A few minutes later, the Wranglers had a chance to even things up with the first power play of the game going to them, but just six seconds into the man advantage, Jakob Pelletier was called for slashing. About 40 seconds later, Jack Thompson of San Jose scored the second goal of the afternoon off another undefended play that he had all the time and space to score on. This goal came at 11:11.
San Jose picked up on the fact that Dansk was a bit rattled and continued to push in Calgary’s zone. They got another shot on the Wranglers netminder that was going five hole and as he squeezed the pads, he almost slid the puck over the goal line. Some of the San Jose skaters thought this may have gone in but the officials confirmed it did not.
Calgary finished the first on the power play that would carry over to the second period. They were down 2-0 after 20 minutes and being out-shot 14-9 by their opponents. They closed in on shots in the second but did not capitalize on their power play.
The Wranglers did have a few chances in the first half of the period but gave up the third goal of the afternoon from Danil Gushchin at 9:48 off a five hole shot. This ended Oscar Dansk’s day and Connor Murphy came in relief. Murphy turned away the rest of the Barracuda shots and the score remained 3-0 at the end of 40 minutes. Shots in the second frame were 13-12 for San Jose.
In the third, the Wranglers got an early goal to get on the board. Adam Klapka corralled the puck in the Barracuda zone off the face-off and set up Sam Morton for his third goal of the year at 3:40.
They were on a power play shortly after and rattling off a few shots but they didn’t do any damage to the score. At 13:15 Ben Jones was called for tripping, which made it harder for the Wranglers to get another marker before it got down to the last five minutes of the game. They had a successful penalty kill and went back to trying to come back.
They pulled Connor Murphy at 16:02 and by 16:22 Nathan Todd of San Jose put the puck in the back of the empty net to make it a 4-1 game. With just 2:12 to go in regulation, the Wranglers floated the puck over Romanov and it just cleared the height of the net. Ben Jones looked to have scored but it was immediately waved off due to a hand pass.
The Wranglers couldn’t make anything else happen by the end of regulation and fell to the Barracuda 4-1. Shots finished 33-31 for the Barracuda and none of the Wranglers ended up on the three-star accolades.
Highlights
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Next up
The Wranglers have wrapped up their crazy two weeks of hockey that consisted of eight games. Their schedule is more spaced out for the rest of the season now with their next series taking place on Friday and Saturday in Bakersfield. Their next game against the Condors will be at 8:00 p.m. MT.
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