Recap: Wranglers fall to Condors for the first time this season in ugly 5-1 loss
1 year ago
The Calgary Wranglers and Bakersfield Condors kicked off the first of two back-to-back games on Thursday night. They’re back at the Scotiabank Saddledome for the second AHL Battle of Alberta series of the season.
Going into this game, the Wranglers had a perfect six-game winning streak against the Condors in their season series. After a rough 5-1 loss, their streak has been snapped and the Condors got one back.
Lineup notes
A few key missing additions for this game included Emilio Pettersen and Dennis Gilbert. No official word on their reasoning for being out of the lineup. Both played in the Wranglers’ last game on Sunday against the Ontario Reign. We’ll have to keep a keen eye out on Friday to see if they return to the lineup or not.
Game at a glance
The first period started with a pretty good pace. They played with pretty minimal stoppages in play and the Wranglers probably got the better of the scoring chances in the opening frame. No scoring ensued and the Wranglers outshot the Condors 11-9.
The second period continued the same pace and play as the first. Dustin Wolf robbed the Condors of their first goal with a huge stop.
Pretty soon after, Wranglers captain Brett Sutter opened up the scoring just over halfway through the second period. Calgary got in deep into the zone and Sutter got the rebound on his stick and sent it to the back of the net off a backhand shot. Walker Duehr and Nick DeSimone assisted on Sutter’s 11th of the season.
Later in the period, the Condors did end up scoring their first of the night when Justin Bailey entered the zone and faked like he was going to pass and no-look shot on Dustin Wolf and it tipped off of Jeremie Poirier’s stick and beat Wolf five-hole.
The score finished up deadlocked at one after 40 minutes of play with the Wranglers doubling up the Condors in shots 26-13.
In the third, the momentum took a shift for the away team. 2:20 into the third Raphael Lavoie scored for the Condors off a well-placed top corner shot on Wolf’s glove side. Pretty soon after, Radim Zohorna was up on a rush and overskated it a bit and ended up knocking the Condors net off.
A crowd of angry players swarmed around the net but afterwards, it was the Wranglers who ended up on the power play. They did not capitalize on this opportunity and a couple of minutes after they were back to even strength, the Condors struck again and quickly took a two-goal lead.
The Wranglers had just under 13 minutes to get at least two goals back. However, their effort was not where they needed to be to do so. The Condors outshot them heavily in the third 17-7. With the extra opportunities they were getting in the offensive zone, Bakersfield got more goals up on the scoreboard. Justin Bailey scored on another no-look shot and deflated the Wranglers even further.
They pulled Wolf with 3:10 to go in regulation for the extra attacker and the Condors scored their fifth goal of the night in the empty net. That finished up the ugly period for the Wranglers and they fell 5-1 in their first loss against Bakersfield this season.
Wranglers head coach Mitch Love credited the lack of emotion, power play struggles, and lack of preparedness going into the third to be part of the issues in this game.
“One team was ready to come out of the gates there in the third and the other team wasn’t and that falls on me. That falls on me as a coach. The guys weren’t prepared enough. I’ll make sure our guys are ready to play hockey tomorrow.”
Next up
This series will continue into Friday night for Star Wars night at the dome. The team has announced they will be opening up seating to the second deck so they are expecting quite a crowd for this game. The puck drop is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. MT.
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