Wranglers Playoff Game Day: The race for the Calder Cup begins against the Canucks
1 year ago
There is playoff hockey to be enjoyed in the city of Calgary and it starts on Wednesday night between the Calgary Wranglers and the Abbotsford Canucks. By finishing first in the Pacific Division, the Wranglers secured a first round bye and will play their first playoff series against the Abbotsford Canucks in the Division semifinals. The Wranglers ended their regular season with a three game series against the Canucks and will need to win three of five in the next two weeks to continue on their highly anticipated playoff run.
Playoff rosters
Calgary
Forwards: Mitch McLain, Brett Sutter, Cole Schwindt. Matthew Phillips, Ben Jones, Clark Bishop, Alex Gallant, Kevin Rooney, Dryden Hunt, Rory Kerins, Martin Pospisil, Parker Bell, Walker Duehr, Adam Klapka, Emilio Pettersen, Connor Zary, Jakob Pelletier
Defensemen: Josh Brook, Colton Poolman, Ilya Solovyov, Jeremie Poirier, Nick DeSimone, Kristians Rubins, Yan Kuznetsov, Nicolas Meloche
Goaltenders: Daniil Chechelev, Matt Radomsky, Dustin Wolf, Oscar Dansk
Abbotsford
Forwards: Arshdeep Bains, John Stevens, Marc Gatcomb, Vincent Arseneau, Aatu Raty, Chase Wouters, Max Sasson, Nils Hoglander, Kyle Rau, Matt Alfaro, Danila Klimovich, Yushiroh Hirano, Michael Regush, Justin Dowling, Tristen Nielsen, Linus Karlsson
Defensemen: Dylan MacPherson, Jack Rathbone, Jett Woo, Brady Keeper, Quinn Schmeimann. Chad Nuchuk, Alex Kannok Leipert, Zach Giuttari, Noah Juulsen, Filip Johansson, Andy Carroll, Christian Wolanin
Goaltenders: Spencer Martin, Artus Silovs, Marco Costantini
Regular season leaders
Calgary
Matthew Phillips – 66GP, 36G, 40A
Connor Zary – 72GP, 21G, 37A
Ben Jones – 71GP, 17G, 37A
Abbotsford
Christian Wolanin – 49GP, 6G, 49A
Linus Karlsson – 72GP, 24G, 25A
Justin Dowling – 56GP, 11G, 35A
Game notes
The Canucks are coming off of a two game sweep in the first round against the Bakersfield Condors. The AHL playoff structure has them playing a best of three game series in the first round and this second round will expand to a best of five series. The Canucks beat the Condors 3-0 back on April 19th and closed the series on April 21st with a 4-2 win.
Nils Hoglander and Kyle Rau are on the league postseason stat leaderboard after their performances in their first two playoff games. With over a point per game average already, they’ll be players to watch going into this game. Rau has three assists in two games and Hoglander has two goals and two assists in those two games.
On Calgary’s side, Alex Gallant will not be available for the first game of this series as he was suspended for three games earlier this month. At the time, there were only two games left in the regular season so his suspension has carried over into the playoffs. His suspension happened as a result of a charging incident against Abbotsford so we will see how this plays out later in the series and if there is any lingering bad blood.
These two played each other 12 times this season and the Wranglers had a 8-4-0-0 edge in the season series. However, their recent track record against the Canucks has not been the greatest. Their record in their last four games was 1-3-0-0. A record they can’t afford to have if they’re looking to win this series.
The Wranglers are the favourites going into this series but cannot take any opponent easy this time of year. They have Walker Duehr and Jakob Pelletier back and available for the lineup and while Duehr missed the last two games of the season with the Wranglers, he has been practising with the team and is anticipated to be in the lineup for game one.
The Wranglers’ first ever postseason run starts Wednesday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome at 7:00 p.m. MT. Tickets are still available or if you are unable to make the game in person, it will be streamed on AHL.tv for a fee. Multiple members of the FlamesNation team will have game updates on Twitter.
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