Recap: Calgary Wranglers get swept in home series against the Ontario Reign
1 month ago
The Calgary Wranglers and Ontario Reign played the second half of their back-to-back series on Monday night at the dome. The Wranglers fell 5-1 in their last meeting on Sunday and looked to reset and bounce back in this one. Despite the good jump in the first and a pair of goals from Adam Klapka, the Wranglers couldn’t net any more goals and fell 6-2.
Game at a glance
Both teams opted for goaltending switches in this game with Oscar Dansk starting for Calgary and Aaron Dell starting for Ontario. If you hadn’t tuned into this game or got to your seat right at puck drop you would have missed some early action between these two. Clark Bishop and Kevin Connauton fought very early in this game just 13 seconds in.
This appeared to be the immediate ramification of Bishop’s hit on Akil Thomas in Sunday’s game that took Bishop out of the game for kneeing. He did some damage too as Thomas was not in the lineup for Monday’s game.
After this got out of the way, they settled into normal play. No scoring ensued until 9:20 when Adam Klapka shoveled in on the doorstep. William Stromgren and Cole Schwindt picked up the assists.
The Reign answered back less than a minute later with a shot from the point from Kevin Connauton. This first marker for the visitors came at 10:11. At 13:20, the Reign were called for delay of game and in the dying seconds of the power play, Klapka struck again to make it a 2-1 game. He took a shot through traffic and scored his second of the night at 15:13. Jeremie Poirier and Jonathan Aspirot assisted.
The Reign unfortunately kept pace and scored again before the end of the period. At 17:30 Steven Santini scored off a shot off the post on Dansk’s blocker side. By the end of the period, the Reign and Wranglers were tied 2-2 and Ontario had a 13-7 edge in shots.
In the second, the momentum of the Wranglers’ start drained and the Reign got their first lead of the night off a shot from Tyler Madden at 4:17. Madden tipped the puck in and made it a 3-2 game.
The Wranglers made a push in the Reign’s zone to try and generate their third goal of the night and got a little boost off a power play at 7:06. They weren’t able to even things up off of this and Ontario flipped the momentum right back in their favour.
At 14:13, the Reign got another unfortunate goal off a tip in front that Dansk did not see all the way. He couldn’t have made much of a play off of it and just like that, the Reign were up 4-2. A few more shots were put on goal but no changes to the score by the end of 40 minutes. Calgary had the lead in shots in the middle frame 13-9.
The third period was pretty flat for both sides until the Reign added another goal at 11:23. Charles Hudon rang a shot off the post that rolled off the crossbar, over to the post and in. In his celebration, Hudon looked just as stunned as Calgary that this puck managed to go in.
The Wranglers made an early move to pull Dansk with seven minutes to go in regulation. Shortly after he skated off, the Reign took a shot that was just a couple of feet wide. Shortly after, Adam Klapka took his second cross-checking call of the period and extinguished their extra attacker plan for two minutes.
This penalty kill was cut short by an opposing penalty to Samuel Fagemo for slashing. With 18 seconds to go in the call to Klapka and 4:22 to go in regulation, the Wranglers took a timeout to strategize for the offensive zone faceoff.
Riley Damiani had the best chance of adding to the Wranglers’ score in the next play but was turned away from Dell. The newest addition to the Wranglers had a couple of great chances to score his first for the team but it was not in the cards in this game.
At 17:13, Jeremie Poirier had a giveaway in front of the Wranglers net and that gave Nikita Pavlychev a wide-open shot at the empty net to make it a 6-2 game. This is the score that remained through the end of regulation and the Reign completed the sweep of the Wranglers in this series. Shot finished 33-32 in this game and Adam Klapka was the only Wrangler recognized in the three stars earning the third one Monday night.
Scoring stat summary
Jeremie Poirier – 1A
Cole Schwindt – 1A
Adam Klapka – 2G
William Stromgren – 1A
Jonathan Aspirot – 1A
Next up
The Wranglers continue to flip-flop their home and away series and will hit the road to play the Colorado Eagles this weekend. Their next match-up will be on Friday at 7:05 p.m. MT.
Let’s get rowdy! GAME DAY hosted by Flamesnation & Barn Burner at Greta Bar YYC is coming at you live on Saturday March 23rd! Join the crew at our favorite Game Day Watch Party spot, Greta, to watch Calgary take on Vancouver! Doors open at 7pm. Tickets are $10! Good food, good prizes and a guaranteed good time. This event is brought to you by McLeod Law LLP and Village Honda. Get your tickets at nationgear.ca before they sell out!
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