Recap: Cole Schwindt and Dustin Wolf lead Calgary Wranglers to 1-0 shootout victory
6 months ago
The Calgary Wranglers finished up their busy week of hockey on Saturday night with their season series closer against the Henderson Silver Knights. After a dominating 5-1 win on Friday, this game kept the scoring tame until the shootout. The Wranglers picked up a 1-0 win thus, completing the sweep over Henderson this weekend and this season.
Lineup notes
With the last-minute call-up of Yan Kuznetsov on Friday, the Wranglers didn’t have an official transaction to backfill their defence until Saturday afternoon. They announced earlier in the day that Charles Martin was called up from Rapid City Rush to add some depth to the blue line. This is Martin’s first call-up and in 28 games with the Rush this year, he has put up 17 points. He did not slot in for this game, however.
After missing Friday’s game, Rory Kerins was back in the lineup on Saturday in place of Ilya Nikolaev. Oscar Dansk was still out and Connor Murphy backed up Dustin Wolf.
Game at a glance
The Silver Knights switched things up in net for this one with Jesper Vikman getting the start. The Wranglers clearly had a tougher time getting the puck past him and had their MVP at the other end to back them up when their opponents got their chances.
Early in the game, Clark Bishop had to answer for a hit he put on the Silver Knights’ captain Jake Bischoff. It was a clean hit but nonetheless, Christoffer Sefoff came to his defence and fought Bishop.
Bishop got some good licks in before falling to the ice and iced his hand in the penalty box as he waited out his fighting major. There were only a couple more penalty calls through the first period and no further action came from them.
At the end of 20 minutes, Henderson had a 9-6 shot advantage in a scoreless game. In the second period, the shots picked up a bit but still no damage was done by either side. The Wranglers had four opportunities on the power play but two of them were cut short by calls of their own.
This game remained scoreless at the end of 40 minutes and Calgary had the second period shot advantage of 16 to Henderson’s 15. In the third, the Wranglers had a couple of penalties to kill off and late in the period, Mitch McLain was called for a game misconduct for unsportsmanlike conduct.
This still didn’t break the scoreless streak and they forced an overtime to try and find a winner in this game. In the third period, Henderson had a 9-8 lead in shots.
Overtime was perhaps the most exciting extra frame the Wranglers have had all year with about five grade-A chances for either side to put this game away. Wolf turned away two Henderson breakaways and Brady Lyle almost ended the game on a shot off the crossbar. Cole Schwindt and Matt Coronato also got some really good looks in the last half of the extra frame but they would need a shootout to decide this one. Shots were an even 2-2 in overtime.
Dustin Wolf performed in the shootout the same way he had all game. With absolute perfection. He stopped all three Henderson shooters Sheldon Rempal, Brendan Brisson, and Gage Quinney to finish this game up. On Calgary’s side, Rory Kerins missed on his first shot and Cole Schwindt scored off a quick five-hole move.
Schwindt picked up the first star of the night with this game-winning shootout goal and Dustin Wolf was awarded the second star for his 35-save shutout. The third star went to Henderson netminder, Jesper Vikman for his 32 save night.
Highlights
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Next up
With six games complete in this homestand, Calgary only has one more series before they hit the road. They’ll play next Thursday and Friday against the Ontario Reign. After that series, they will not be back home until after the All-Star break on Friday, Feb. 9. Their upcoming games both have a 7:00 p.m. start time.
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