The Calgary Wranglers played game three of five of their road trip on Wednesday night. For their stop in Bakersfield for the night, they were looking to snap their three-game losing streak. Instead of doing so, they ended up adding another loss to the list to make it four straight without a win. The score in this game against the Condors finished up at 4-2.
Game at a glance
Dustin Wolf was back with the team for this game and earned the start between the pipes. Also back with the team was Ilya Solovyov. On the Condors’ end, Olivier Rodrigue got the nod in this game. Even having their all-star back, the Wranglers did not start this game the way they would’ve liked. By 1:09 into this match-up, the puck was already in the back of the net and it wasn’t for Calgary.
Ty Tullio started the scoring of the night after he received a pass from the back of the net and jammed it past Wolf. Almost exactly four minutes later, Bakersfield made it a 2-0 game. Lucas Ciona was serving a cross-checking penalty, and Seth Griffith passed the puck up to Drake Cagguila, who scored off a backhand wrist shot.
The Wranglers took three more penalties in the opening frame, with one being an offsetting roughing call. They were able to kill these off but still finished the first period down 2-0 and trailing their opponents 20-12 in shots.
In the second, Calgary gave up another early goal. This one came 2:39 into the period from Jayde Grubbe. The Wranglers lost the offensive zone faceoff and the Condors took off. Grubbe scored off a one-timer and made the score 3-0 for Bakersfield.
The Wranglers continued playing on their heels and were trying to break the goose egg on their side of the scoreboard. At 10:07 in the second, Calgary finally lit the lamp. Emilio Pettersen scored a power play goal off a feed from Rory Kerins and got his team on the board. Jonathan Aspirot also assisted on this first Wranglers goal.
That was it for the second period scoring action but that did not complete the notable actions of the frame. At 18:56, Jonathan Aspirot collided with Drake Caggiula and was elbowed in the face. Caggiula was called for an elbowing major and a game misconduct that ended his night. Aspirot was evaluated and did return to the game in the third.
At the end of 40 minutes of play, the Wranglers were trailing 3-1. However, they did have a better shot effort in the second, out-shooting the home team 16-5. Calgary was able to take advantage of the five minute power play and scored their second goal 1:01 into the third period.
Mitch McLain was the Calgary goalscorer after he attempted to connect on the one-timer and jammed the puck past Rodrigue when his initial shot was saved. Emilio Pettersen and Mark Pysyk picked up the helpers on McLain’s fifth goal of the season.
The Wranglers still had 2:56 of power play time after this goal but did not get another puck past against the Condors netminder. Instead, they matched their shots from the first period with 12 in the final frame but could not find that goal to even things up.
Calgary pulled Dustin Wolf at 17:47 for the extra attacker and Brad Malone capitalized with an empty net goal at 19:26. That pretty well put the game away and the score finished up at 4-2. The only two goals from the Wranglers were on the power play and their shots finished up at 40 on the night.
Scoring stat summary
Mitch McLain – 1G
Mark Pysyk – 1A
Rory Kerins – 1A
Emilio Pettersen – 1G, 1A
Jonathan Aspiro – 1A
Next up
The Wranglers will wrap up their pre-Christmas road trip this weekend against the Colorado Eagles. They still hold the top spot in the Pacific Division but are one loss away from being overthrown by the Ontario Reign. They will play on Friday and Saturday with their next game set to start at 7:05 p.m. MT.
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