Series preview: Calgary Wranglers start the last month of the regular season in Colorado
1 month ago
The Calgary Wranglers are entering their last month of the regular season and have some work to do in the Pacific Division if they want their season to extend past mid-April. Every remaining game is against Pacific division opponents so the wins and points are becoming as critical as ever. Their next opponent will be the Colorado Eagles for a two-game away series.
Projected lineups
Calgary
Adam Klapka – Cole Schwindt – William Stromgren
Clark Bishop – Ben Jones – Matthew Wedman
Lucas Ciona – Riley Damiani – Mark Duarte
Brett Sutter – Mitch McLain – Alex Gallant
Jeremie Poirier – Colton Poolman
Jordan Oesterle – Jonathan Aspirot
Yan Kuznetsov – Artem Grushnikov
Oscar Dansk
Connor Murphy
Colorado
Riley Tufte – Frederik Olofsson – Tanner Kero
Callahan Burke – Ivan Ivan – Jean-Luc Foudy
Ryan Sandelin – Peter Holland – Matthew Stienburg
Dalton Smith – Ondrej Pavel – Jason Polin
Keaton Middleton – Brad Hunt
Jack Ahcan – Sam Malinski
Wyatt Aamodt – Corey Schueneman
Ivan Prosvetov
Trent Miner
Leaders
Calgary
Matt Coronato – 40GP, 15G, 27A (Inactive on NHL call-up)
Ben Jones – 56GP, 19G, 19A
Adam Klapka – 50GP, 16G, 19A
Colorado
Brad Hunt – 56GP, 15G, 29A
Riley Tufte – 51GP, 17G, 19A
Cedric Pare – 49GP, 13G, 18A
Notes and expectations
The Wranglers appear to be out their starting goaltender for this series again. Dustin Wolf is up covering Jacob Markstrom on a day-to-day injury and came in relief in the Flames’ game against the Avalanche and started in their game against the Golden Knights. As expected, Connor Murphy was called up from Rapid City on Wednesday to back up Oscar Dansk. However, Murphy has had a good run with the Wranglers in his last few starts in February so he may very well see some time against the Eagles.
Another transaction between the AHL and ECHL squads included the assignment of Will Riedell to the Rush. Riedell played in 16 games with Calgary this year, registering one goal and four assists. With Ilya Solovyov back to practice this week, it appears his return is imminent. This will likely kick out one of the guys on the third pairing out of the lineup.
The Eagles have been a good opponent for the Wranglers this year. They’ve had success against them with only one regulation loss in six match-ups. Their last meeting was just a couple of weeks ago for a pair of games on the first weekend of March. The first game resulted in a 5-4 for the visiting Eagles and the Wranglers bounced back to win their second game 3-1. Colorado sits at third in the division going into this series and Calgary sits at sixth.
Playoffs aren’t the only things in the back of the players’ minds this weekend. The AHL trade deadline is Friday but will pass by the time these two hit the ice. Trades and loans need to be finalized by 3:00 p.m. ET or 1:00 p.m. MT. It will be interesting to see if the Wranglers have any moves to do outside of the organization. Last year, there weren’t any unexpected moves prior to the AHL deadline as this team is more affected by the moves at the NHL level.
After the trade deadline is done and gone, this series will get started on Friday night in Loveland, CO. The following game will be on Saturday night. Both games have a 7:05 p.m. MT start time. You can stream these games for a fee on AHL.tv and FlamesNation contributors Mike Gould and I will have updates on X (formerly Twitter).
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