Series Preview: Calgary Wranglers ramp up for four game series against the Eagles
1 year ago
After winning on Wednesday night to snap their losing streak, the Wranglers will kick off another series this weekend that will extend into next week. They will play a four-game series against the Colorado Eagles with two games taking place in Colorado this week and the next two taking place in Calgary to close it out. Going into this series, the Wranglers have an edge with a 3-1-0-0 record on the season against the Eagles.
Projected lineups
Calgary
Matthew Phillips – Ben Jones – Emilio Pettersen
Connor Zary – Clark Bishop – Mitch McLain
Brett Sutter – Kevin Rooney – Radim Zohorna
Alex Gallant – Cole Schwindt – Adam Klapka
Connor Zary – Clark Bishop – Mitch McLain
Brett Sutter – Kevin Rooney – Radim Zohorna
Alex Gallant – Cole Schwindt – Adam Klapka
Ilya Solovyov – Nick DeSimone
Jeremie Poirier – Nicolas Meloche
Yan Kuznetsov – Colton Poolman
Jeremie Poirier – Nicolas Meloche
Yan Kuznetsov – Colton Poolman
Dustin Wolf
Daniil Chechelev
Daniil Chechelev
(Editor’s Note: Radim Zohorna was traded to Toronto, so obviously the forward lines will be shuffled up a bit.)
Colorado
Charles Hudon – Ben Meyers – Jean-Luc Foudy
Cedric Pare – Callahan Burke – Sampo Ranta
Anton Blidh – Spencer Smallman – Oskar Olausson
Brandon Cutler – Justin Scott – Alex Beaucage
Cedric Pare – Callahan Burke – Sampo Ranta
Anton Blidh – Spencer Smallman – Oskar Olausson
Brandon Cutler – Justin Scott – Alex Beaucage
Keaton Middleton – David Farrance
Wyatt Aamodt – Nate Clurman
Luke Martin – Ryan Merkley
Wyatt Aamodt – Nate Clurman
Luke Martin – Ryan Merkley
Jonas Johansson
Justus Annunen
Justus Annunen
Leaders
Calgary
Matthew Phillips – 48 GP, 27G, 30A
Connor Zary – 54 GP, 17G, 31A
Ben Jones – 53 GP, 12G, 30A
Colorado
Charles Hudon – 43 GP, 18G, 19A
Jean-Luc Foudy – 38GP, 11G, 22A
Callahan Burke – 50GP, 15G, 14A
Notes and expectations
The Wranglers are just about playing back-to-back extended series with a three game series against the Henderson Silver Knights last week, one game against the Coachella Valley Firebirds to break it up, then four straight games coming up against the Colorado Eagles. While these types of long series aren’t super common, it’s not a bad time to be playing the same teams over and over again to prime themselves for a playoff-like series.
Speaking of playoffs, with just about a month and a half to go in the regulator season, the league-leading Wranglers are already a part of the conversation about magic numbers and clinching a playoff berth. As Wranglers play-by-play broadcaster Sandra Prusina pointed out earlier this week, the Wranglers head into this series with a magic number of 11 to clinch a playoff berth and a magic number of 16 to clinch the Pacific Division and earn themselves a bye in the first round.
The Wranglers’ former identity, the Stockton Heat, successfully clinched the Pacific Division last season and was just shy of clinching the league’s top spot. They were second only to the Calder Cup defending champions, the Chicago Wolves.
They could make some serious progress towards those numbers in this series against the Eagles as they have had a majority of success against them this year. Although, the Eagles are still up there in the standings and have given the Wranglers a couple of close games so far this year. The Wranglers sit at first in the Pacific Division going into their first games of this series while the Eagles sit at fourth in the Pacific Division.
This series kicks off on Friday night in Loveland, Colorado and continues into Saturday still on the road for Calgary. Both of those games will get started at 7:05 p.m. MT. The series will continue into next week in Calgary when the Wranglers host the Eagles for games three and four on Tuesday, March 7th and Wednesday, March 8th. Those games will start at 7:00 p.m. MT.
You can catch all of these games by streaming them on AHL.TV or grabbing some tickets to see the Wranglers back in action on home ice next week. FlamesNation contributors Mike Gould and myself will have updates for you on our Twitter accounts.
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