Recap: Calgary Wranglers score seven, Dustin Wolf stops 43 shots in 7-4 win
7 months ago
The Calgary Wranglers and the Henderson Silver Knights played the back half of their weekend series on Sunday night. Calgary won the previous match-up 2-1 on Friday and made it a clean sweep with a 7-4 win on Sunday. 13 Wranglers contributed points in this game with seven of them registering multi-point games.
Lineup notes
Will Riedell slotted into the lineup for his first game as a Wrangler this season. He previously played with the San Jose Barracuda in the 2022-23 season and the Lehigh Valley Phantoms for a pair of games in the season prior. He was acquired by the Rapid City Rush this season and was called up to the Wranglers on Nov. 24. He wore the number sixteen in red and skated on a pairing with Brady Lyle.
Mark Pysyk was also added to the roster on Sunday after being signed by the Flames on Saturday and clearing waivers on Sunday. He was not available for this game, however.
Game at a glance
The goaltending match-up in this game mirrored that of their Friday lineups. Dustin Wolf got the nod for the Wranglers and Jordan Papirny for the Silver Knights. While Wolf got challenged first with the first few shots of the game, it would be the Wranglers that would score their first goal on the second shot of the night.
Matt Coronato fended off two Henderson skaters, got the puck on the net, Ben Jones chipped at it and Dryden Hunt got the rebound into the back of the net. This goal came 3:38 into the game.
Just over two minutes later, Mitch McLain hit an opposing player along the boards and had to answer for it by dropping the gloves. He fought Mason Primeau and had a pretty solid tilt early in this game.
The Wranglers continued riding their momentum in the first period and scored their second of the night 10:20 into the opening period. It would be the same line scoring again with Matt Coronato skating in alone on the breakaway. Ben Jones and Dryden Hunt assisted.
A few more penalties were called in the back half of the period and just a second after a two many men call against Calgary came to an end, the Silver Knights answered back with a goal by Tyler Benson at 18:28.
The period finished up with a bit of rough stuff that resulted in offsetting penalties for Dryden Hunt and Brendan Brisson. This carried over to the start of the second period. The Wranglers held a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes of play but were out-shot 14-4.
The second started with four-on-four hockey, then about a minute after these penalties expired, Adam Cracknell scored the second goal of the night for Henderson to tie the game early in the second period.
This was about as close as this game was all night as the Wranglers started rolling on the goal side of things starting at 9:59. Emilio Pettersen scored his fourth of the year off of a sharp angle shot behind the net that deflected off the goaltender and in. Yan Kuznetsov and Clark Bishop assisted.
The Wranglers struck again just 19 seconds later with a goal by Mitch McLain. While this goal was very close on the game clock, it actually came just after a media timeout. So not as close to Pettersen’s goal as initially meets the eye. McLain took a shot off of DeSimone’s rebound and scored Calgary’s fourth of the night. His marker was also assisted by Jonathan Aspirot in addition to DeSimone.
Both teams took some time to breathe for a few minutes, then the Wranglers scored their third goal of the period and their fifth goal of the night at 18:15. Rory Kerins came up on the rush with Adam Klapka and could have passed but took the shot himself and was rewarded for it. Adam Klapka and Emilio Pettersen assisted on Kerins’ fifth goal of the season.
That was the last of the scoring action of the second period and the Wranglers were up 5-2 after 40 complete minutes of play. The shots were much closer in the second with the Wranglers finishing with a 13-12 advantage.
Calgary continued their roll of goals in the third period with Yan Kuznetsov picking up his marker of the season at 4:40. He took a shot from the point that was well screened and earned the Wranglers their sixth goal of the night. Cole Schwindt and Emilio Pettersen assisted.
The Wranglers would hit goal number eight with Rory Kerins registering his second of the night at 8:48 on the power play. He was in the perfect position to bury Adam Klapka’s rebound and Brady Lyle also picked up an assist.
The Silver Knights got a bit of life back in the second half of the third with Grigori Denisenko scoring on the power play at 11:06. They would score again a few minutes later with a goal by Jake Bischoff at 13:49. This two-goal stretch to put the Silver Knights within three goals was enough of a momentum shift to try making something happen in the dying minutes with an extra attacker.
They pulled Jordan Papirny at 17:35 and held the Wranglers zone pretty much to the end of the game. They peppered Dustin Wolf with 10 shots over the next two and a half minutes but Wolf held his own and kept the game at four for the home team. He had a very active game in net facing 47 shots in 60 minutes.
The Wranglers put up 28 shots of their own and picked up the win with a 7-4 final score. Calgary unsurprisingly swept the three-star accolades with Emilio Pettersen named as the first star, Rory Keins named as the second and Ben Jones named as the third.
Scoring stat summary
Mitch McLain – 1G
Cole Schwindt – 1A
Ben Jones – 2A
Clark Bishop – 1A
Dryden Hunt – 1G, 1A
Rory Kerins – 2G
Nick DeSimone – 1A
Brady Lyle – 1A
Yan Kuznetsov – 1G, 1A
Matt Coronato – 1G, 1A
Adam Klapka – 2A
Emilio Pettersen – 1G, 2A
Jonathan Aspirot – 1A
Next up
The Wranglers have some time to recover as they will travel home and host the Manitoba Moose next weekend. That series will kick off on Friday at 7:00 p.m. MT and continue into Sunday for a 1:00 p.m. game.
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