Recap: Wranglers inconsistent efforts result in 4-3 OT loss against Canucks
6 months ago
The Calgary Wranglers were greeted by a healthy crowd of 4,899 on Thursday night to get their lengthy homestand going. They hosted the Abbotsford Canucks for the first of two games in back-to-back nights for the first game since the brief Christmas break. Despite the back-and-forth scoring, the Wranglers got caught on their heels at times and fell in a 4-3 overtime decision.
Lineup notes
Adam Klapka returned to the lineup after missing the last two games due to illness. He is not completely over his bug but was able to play. Missing from the lineup was Colton Poolman. Poolman suffered an upper-body injury in their last series against the Colorado Eagles and is listed as day-to-day for now. In his place, Will Riedell slotted into the lineup on a pairing with Brady Lyle.
Game at a glance
The break didn’t seem to wear down either team in this competition to start. They picked up at the same pace they left off and got the game action going early. Dustin Wolf got a few early tests between the pipes but turned them away.
Rory Kerins and Mark Pysyk set Ben Jones up for the game’s first goal at 7:09. They passed the puck up the ice to an undefended Jones deep in the zone. The Wranglers scoring leader beat Abbotsford netminder Arturs Silovs and gave the Wranglers a 1-0 lead in the first half of the period.
After this goal, Calgary and Abbotsford had a pair of power play opportunities but neither capitalised. At the end of the opening frame, the Wranglers held a 1-0 lead and a 15-12 edge in shots.
In the second, the Canucks got a place on the scoreboard quite early. Matt Irwin scored his first goal of the season at 1:15 off a hefty slap shot in deep. This started a roll of momentum for the Canucks that prevented the Wranglers from even getting a shot off in this frame until 11:50.
Abbotsford jumped on the Wranglers changed effort levels in the middle frame and scored their second goal of the night at 12:31. Vasily Podkolzin caught Wolf down in a save a buried a rebound past the Wranglers goaltender.
The Wranglers dialed up the efforts after this goal to prevent the game from slipping away from them and answered back with a goal of their own at 16:41. Dryden Hunt tipped in Will Riedell’s shot and got the score back evened up. This was Riedell’s first point as a Wrangler. Clark Bishop also earned the secondary assist.
At the end of 40 minutes, the Wranglers were tied 2-2 and out-shot 16-9 in the second period. In the third period, Calgary got the lead back with a deflection goal from Cole Schwindt at 12:49. Will Riedell also assisted on this marker along with Dryden Hunt.
Unfortunately, this lead was very short-lived. 15 seconds to be exact. Max Sasson took a seemingly harmless shot on Wolf that he did not get ahold of and slipped through his legs. Calgary had the most opportunities in the remaining time to win this one but were not successful. This game had to be decided outside of regulation.
In overtime, the Wranglers struggled to get out of their own zone and failed to register a single shot in the extra frame. On the Canucks’ third shot of overtime, they scored the game-winner. This goal came at 1:58. None of the Wranglers made it to the three stars and shots finished 38-33 for Abbotsford. The final score was 4-3.
Highlights
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Next up
There will be a quick turnaround for this series with game two taking place on Friday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome. Note the start time is an hour earlier at 6:00 p.m. MT.
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