Recap: Calgary Wranglers fall in second consecutive game against Silver Knights
1 year ago
The Calgary Wranglers continued their three-game series against the Henderson Silver Knights on Thursday night. They fell the previous night by a score of 5-4 in overtime. They looked to make up some ground on their losing record in the season series against Henderson but were unfortunately unsuccessful. The Wranglers fell 5-2 on Thursday night to finish up their six-game homestand.
Lineup notes
There were a few lineup changes for the Wranglers on Thursday night including one between the pipes. Daniil Chechelev got his second start of the season for the Wranglers and Dustin Wolf backed him up after starting the last five straight games. This was Chechelev’s third start in the AHL and he actually picked up his first win in the league back on Feb. 11 against the San Jose Barracuda. It also happened to be his 22nd birthday as well.
Another change was the forward to defenceman ratio. The Wranglers ran with 11 forwards and seven defencemen in this game. Josh Brook was among the three defencemen in the starting lineup and Adam Klapka was a healthy scratch. This is not the first time the Wranglers have opted for an extra defenceman this season and when better to do it than against a hard checking team that just scored five goals against you the previous night?
Game at a glance
The penalty train from Wednesday night seemed to slow at the start of this game. Only one call a side was made in the opening frame. The Wranglers did have a four minute power play opportunity off a double minor high sticking call that was unfortunately cut short with a call against them. No damage was done on either side and the game remained scoreless.
It ended up being the Wranglers that would score first with a great effort from Radim Zohorna in the zone. He took a shot through traffic and beat the Henderson goaltender top shelf. Emilio Pettersen and Matthew Phillips assisted. This goal came 12:22 into the period.
Less than two minutes later, the Silver Knights answered back with a rebound play that caused the puck to bounce off the post a few times then eventually end up in the back of Calgary’s net. The Silver Knight scorer, Sheldon Rempal also had two goals and two assists in their game against each other on Wednesday night.
No other scoring or penalties occurred in the remainder of the period and the score sat at 1-1 after the end of 20 minutes of play. The Silver Knights held a slight edge in shots 13-12.
The Wranglers took an early penalty in the second and got caught in their own zone unable to clear the puck late in the penalty kill. The Silver Knights were able to set up for a slapshot and beat Chechelev. Henderson’s second goal came 3:04 into the period.
Later in the period, the Wranglers found themselves on a 5-on-3 for 1:17 to try and get a goal back but were unsuccessful in that effort. The Silver Knights’ defenders were making it especially hard for them to get any good opportunities deep in the zone and played a textbook penalty kill.
The Wranglers had four consecutive power plays in this period and were unable to capitalize on any of them. Just after their fourth one expired, the Silver Knights pulled ahead even further with a shot straight at Chechelev he let get loose and Sakari Manninen was right in front of the net to get the puck around and in the back of the net. The Silver Knights took a two goal lead 17:42 into the second period.
The second finished up with Connor Zary in the box and Brett Sutter on a shorthanded breakaway just as the horn sounded. He just made it into the zone when the period came to an end and he was unable to get a shot off. The second finished with the Silver Knights leading 3-1 in goals and the Wranglers leading 24-19 in shots.
Early in the third, Jeremie Poirier and Sheldon Rempal got into a chirping battle that quickly escalated to both of them dropping the gloves. That would be Poirier’s first pro fight and it wasn’t the prettiest but once he got into it, he held his own pretty well. Both took a seat to serve their five-minute majors.
Just over halfway through the third, Connor Zary scored a funky goal over the shoulder of Silver Knights goaltender Jiri Patera. It was quite a lucky shot from a sharp angle that snuck into the back of the net. Colton Poolman had the lone assist.
Before they could even finish announcing the goal in the dome, Kevin Rooney appeared to score five hole to tie things up. The goal horn started to sound and the referee quickly waved it off. They reviewed it and the no-goal call remained due to goaltender interference.
The Wranglers seemed pretty gassed up until this point and they had a little bit of life after this goal. Time was running out and they pulled Daniil Chechelev for the extra attacker. Seconds later, the Silver Knights scored into the empty net and took a two goal lead.
The Wranglers tried the extra attacker strategy again and unfortunately, a Silver Knights player cleared the puck high into the zone and Nick DeSimone and Jeremie Poirier couldn’t catch up to it in time to prevent it from crossing the goal line. This game quickly escalated to a 5-2 lead for Henderson.
That score would carry to the bitter end and the Wranglers fell to the Silver Knights once again and on back-to-back nights.
Matthew Phillips reflected on their play against Henderson saying,
“They seem to kind of just have our number and they play us very hard. I think they’re a lot better than their record shows.”
The final score was 5-2 with two empty-netters that don’t go against Chechelev. Calgary outshot Henderson 38-28 and unfortunately went 0/7 on the power play.
Highlights
Failed to load video.
Next up
The Calgary homestand is now officially over but the Henderson series continues. The Wranglers have one more game this week against the Silver Knights in their barn on Sunday. Sunday’s game starts at 3:00 p.m. MT.
THE DAILY FACEOFF TRADE DEADLINE SHOW
Join us on March 3rd for the Daily Faceoff Live: Trade Deadline edition as Frank Seravalli and the panel break down all of the latest rumours, news, and rumblings from around the NHL. The show will be live on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter from 10 AM – 2 PM MT to keep you up to date on all things trade deadline no matter where you’re watching from.
Recent articles from Paige Siewert
