Wranglers playoff game day: Gearing up for Game Two
in 2 hours
The Calgary Wranglers set the tone for the Pacific Division semi-finals with a 4-1 win on Friday night against the same team that ended their season in the playoffs in 2023. The Wranglers have one more game at home this weekend before they close out the playoff series in Coachella Valley. They’ll look to keep their perfect post-season record and take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five on Sunday afternoon.
Projected lineups
Calgary
Jakob Pelletier – Cole Schwindt – Matt Coronato
William Stromgren – Sam Morton – Adam Klapka
Brett Sutter – Clark Bishop – Riley Damiani/Adam Klapka
Mitch McLain – Ben Jones – Adam Klapka/Riley Damiani
Jordan Oesterle – Ilya Solovyov
Colton Poolman – Jeremie Poirier
Jonathan Aspirot – Mark Pysyk
Yan Kuznetsov
Dustin Wolf (starter)
Oscar Dansk
Coachella Valley
Max McCormick – Andrew Poturalski – Kole Lind
Ryan Winterton – Shane Wright – Cameron Hughes
Jani Nyman – Devin Shore – John Hayden
Jacob Melanson – Logan Morrison – Marian Studenic
Ryker Evans – Connor Carrick
Gustav Olofsson – Cale Fleury
Jimmy Schuldt – Ville Ottavainen
Chris Driedger
Ales Stezka
Post-season leaders
Calgary
Adam Klapka – 3GP, 1G, 4A
Matt Coronato – 3GP, 1G, 2A
Sam Morton – 3GP, 2G
Coachella Valley
Ryker Evans – 1GP, 1G
Jacob Melanson – 1GP, 1A
Marian Studenic – 1GP, 1A
Game two notes and expectations
Friday’s game between these two was a lot closer than the score shows. The 4-1 game included two empty-netters that would not have happened had Dustin Wolf not stood on his head in the last handful of minutes in the third period. He made one of his saves of the season on this play late in the third that would inches away from a 2-2 game.
This opened up the opportunity for Calgary to continue to defend their zone and clear the puck out for two empty-net goals in the final two minutes. Dustin Wolf was one of the x-factors in this game and Adam Klapka was one of the others. Klapka scored the opening goal in the second period and assisted on the game-winner in the second. With the Firebirds on the receiving end of their outstanding individual efforts, they’re going to do everything in their power to shut them down in game two.
On the other end, a few familiar players were trying to make a difference for the visitors. Ryker Evans was the only Firebird able to beat Wolf but others made their best effort. Shane Wright and Devin Shore put up four shots in game one and Kole Lind led the team in shots on goal with five. These are high-scoring skaters for Coachella Valley and ones that won’t go away in this series.
In a best-of-five, every game is that much more important and if the Wranglers can pull off a win, they’ll only need one more in the next up to three games to move on. Game two between these Pacific Division rivals starts on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. MT. There are still seats available if you’d like to catch this game in person. Otherwise, you can follow along with the radio broadcast on the Fan960 or watch the stream on AHL.tv for a fee. Multiple FlanesNation contributors will have game updates on X (formerly Twitter).
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