The Calgary Wranglers shed some of their top players to NHL opportunities going into this season, but still have a recognizable core. They kicked things off in a Friday evening game against one of their division rivals, the Abbotsford Canucks.

They got down to the same 4-1 deficit the Flames had against the Vancouver Canucks earlier this week but were unable to make the same full comeback. They fell in game one with a final score of 4-3.

William Stromgren – Sam Morton – Martin Frk

Lucas Ciona – Clark Bishop – Walker Duehr

Jakob Pelletier – Rory Kerins – Dryden Hunt

Parker Bell – Jaden Lipinski – Ilya Nikolaev

Artem Grushnikov – Ilya Solovyov

Jarred Tinordi – Jeremie Poirier

Yan Kuznetsov – Hunter Brzustewicz

Devin Cooley

The Wranglers did their introductions in front of the home crowd and officially kicked off the 2024-25 season. Devin Cooley got the start for Calgary and on the other end, Nikita Tolopilo was in the net for Abbotsford. The whistles got going early when Lucas Ciona and Linus Karlsson got tangled up and got offsetting penalties. A cross-checking call for Ciona and an unsportsmanlike conduct call for Karlsson.

As each side started getting their bearings a bit more, they started to go back and forth in shots. Then dealt with a variety of special teams situations for the rest of the period. Lucas Ciona was called again for roughing. This time alongside Tristen Nielsen. After these two went to the box, the first goal of the game came soon after.

Canucks captain Chase Wouters opened the scoring 18 minutes into the first period with a goal assisted by Carsen Twarynski and Kirill Kudryavstev. Just under a minute and a half later, it was a 2-0 Abbotsford game with a wraparound deflection goal from Sammy Blais. Erik Brannstrom and Chase Wouters assisted Blais’ marker for his second point of the night.

At the end of the first period, the Wranglers were down 2-0 and were being narrowly outshot 9-8. In the second period, the Canucks made it a 3-0 game with a goal from Danila Klimovich 4:42 into the period.

The Wranglers finally got their answer back with their first goal of the season from Rory Kerins at 8:35. Hunter Brzuestewicz set him up with a low pass to the slot that Kerins tipped in.

In the last two seasons, Jeremie Poirier had the season opening goal for the Wranglers. Funny enough, Kerins said post-game that Poirier pictured a different fate for the start of this season. He said, “JP is one of my good buddies. He told me before the game tonight, I was going to score.”

And score he did. That was just the first of two for Kerins in this game and that first marker earned Brzustewicz’s first pro point and the first point of the season for Jakob Pelletier. They made sure to hold onto the puck after that one.

They couldn’t relish in the celebration of that goal for long being down 3-1 at that point and by 11:08, the Canucks made it a 4-1 game. Tristen Nielsen scored off a perfect bounce off the end boards and Elias Pettersson and Mark Friedman picked up the helpers.

Before the second came to an end, the Wranglers snuck another goal in with a well-placed shot from Ilya Solovyov right off the face-off win from Sam Morton. This goal came at 15:18.

Each side scored a pair in the second but it would be the Canucks up 4-2 after 40 minutes of play. Shots at this point were 11-7 In the third period, the Wranglers had their opportunities to crawl back into this game and it was Rory Kerins who would put another marker on the board with a power play goal at 8:01. Jakob Pelletier picked up his second assist of the night and Martin Frk got the other helper. Kerins chipped away in front of the net and scored on his rebound with a backhander.

They had a couple of power play opportunities to try and tie it up but they couldn’t find goal number four before the end buzzer. The Canucks took the 4-3 win and shots finished an even 23-23.

In head coach Trent Cull’s evaluation of the game he said:

It wasn’t a perfect game, but it didn’t seem to be as rusty as it seemed in previous years. Many of the guys were up for Flames camp and their pre-season really helped their first AHL game performance. There was some early line chemistry to get excited about and some players who are just starting to show a glimpse of their summer work coming to fruition.

Hunter Brzustewicz – 1A

Rory Kerins – 2G

Ilya Solovyov – 1G

Jakob Pelletier – 2A

Martin Frk – 1A

Sam Morton – 1A

The Wranglers and Canucks are back in action to wrap up their season-opening series on Sunday, October 13th. The Canucks look for the sweep and the Wranglers go for a split in their upcoming afternoon match-up starting at 1:00 p.m. MT.