Recap: Calgary Wranglers fall to Roadrunners in shootout, split season series
1 year ago
The Calgary Wranglers and Tucson Roadrunners played their last regular season game against each other on Saturday night. The Wranglers won 5-0 the previous night and while this game went all the way past regulation, the Roadrunners would get their revenge and win the game in the shootout. The final score was 3-2.
Game at a glance
The goaltending match-up switched up a bit in this game with Oscar Dansk coming in. On the other side, the same goaltender the Wranglers faced on Friday was between the pipes for the Roadrunners, Tyler Parks.
It was mostly Wranglers to start the game, with the Roadrunners only putting up a single shot the whole first period. 11:52 into the period, Adam Klapka opened up scoring with a power play goal deflected off his body. Nick DeSimone and Matthew Phillips assisted.
That was the only goal through the first 20 minutes and the shots finished up 8-1 favouring Calgary. In the second period, the Roadrunners answered back early with a goal 2:16 into the period.
Both Calgary and Tucson went back and forth on power plays and penalty kills then 13:37 into the period, the Roadrunners got a chance on the penalty kill and scored a shorthanded goal to take their first lead of the night.
The second finished up with the Roadrunners up 2-1 and out-shooting the Wranglers 11-5. In the third, it was starting to look like the score would remain the same way the period started and it would be decided in regulation.
Jeremie Poirier got tangled up in a fight late in the game and had quite a tilt. He’s not usually a player you expect to fight and this was only the second pro fight of his career. His first was back about a month ago on Feb. 23.
This fight happened with just less than three minutes to go in regulation and time was running low to score at least a tying goal. Thankfully, Matthew Phillips had something to do with that. Phillips scored with just 28 seconds to go in regulation and kept the Wranglers alive long enough to take this game outside of regulation. Emilio Pettersen and Nick DeSimone assisted on Phillips’ timely goal.
In overtime, the Roadrunners had the best scoring chances and put up four shots to the Wranglers’ zero. Dansk held things down in Calgary’s end and kept the score as it was. This game would need to be decided in a shootout.
The first Roadrunners shooter scored, then Connor Zary missed on his attempt. In the second round, the Roadrunners shooter missed and Jeremie Poirier scored. In the third round, the Roadrunners scored again and Matthew Phillips missed on his attempt.
The Roadrunners snapped the Wranglers’ six-game winning streak and kept their season series split at two wins a side. The final score was 3-2 and shots finished 26-25 in favour of Calgary. This was just the first shootout loss the Wranglers suffered this season.
Next up
The Wranglers return home for their last homestand of the regular season. They will host the San Diego Gulls on Friday and Sunday night with Sunday’s game being their fan appreciation night. Both of their next games are set to start at 7:00 p.m. MT at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
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