The Calgary Wranglers played their second of three games this week on Friday for Henderson’s home opener. With the pressure of being on the road and facing an excited crowd, Calgary held their composure and picked up a 5-3 win against the Golden Knights’ affiliate.

Calgary rolled with the same lineup as last game just outside of the goaltending choice. With them going back to a 12 forward and six defenceman system, the odd man out the last two games has been Ilya Solovyov. For Wednesday, it may have been a night off but with it being two in a row now, it appears to be injury related. We will continue to monitor updates from the team to confirm what is keeping what should be one of the Wranglers’ top blue liners out of the lineup.

After going 2-1 and starting every game of the season so far, Devin Cooley got the night off for the front half of this back to back series. Waltteri Ignatjew got his first start for the Wranglers for this Friday night match up. On the Silver Knights’ side, Akira Schmid took his spot in the crease.

Rory Kerins was a player to watch going into this game and he proved why when he puck up the first shot of the game just 21 seconds in and scored the opening goal at 6:26. Kerins sped into the zone practically unguarded and sniped one past Schmid. Jakob Pelletier and Jonathan Aspirot picked up the helpers on Kerins’ sixth goal of the season.

Clark Bishop built off the early momentum Kerins brought to this game and scored his first goal of the season just 33 seconds later. Jakob Pelletier picked up Bishop in the slot and he finished the play with ease. Dryden Hunt also picked up a point on goal number two for the visitors.

Henderson tried to push back a bit every this pair of goals and had some chances on the power play. They weren’t able to get on the board, but Calgary was able to sneak one more goal in before the end of the period.

The Wranglers were on the power play and Walker Duehr was perfectly positioned for the one-timer. Ilya Nikolaev served it up to him on a platter and just like that, it was a 3-0 game. Sam Morton also picked up a secondary assist on this marker.

By the end of the opening 20 minutes of play, Calgary had a 3-0 lead against Henderson but trailed 12-8 in shots. In the second period, the Silver Knights got some early momentum back with a penalty called against the Wranglers. They had a string of shots in the first five minutes of the period and Ignatjew turned them all away.

When the Wranglers were able to corral the puck back in the offensive zone, Rory Kerins once again found the back of the net putting him up to five goals in two games this week. Kerins was right on the doorstep during the power play shift and chipped in the fourth goal for Calgary in this game. Dryden Hunt and Jakob Pelletier assisted on this marker too at 9:05.

Just shy of a minute later, Henderson got their first goal on the board with a goal by Gage Quinney. That was the end of the scoring in this frame but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Shots through the second were 16-14 favouring Calgary and they finished the period up 4-1.

The Silver Knights looked for a full comeback in the third and Grigori Denisenko got them within two goals by scoring 9:47 into the third. He received a feed from behind the net and tipped it past Ignatjew to make it a 4-2 game.

Henderson got within one goal with a weird play in the last five minutes. With 4:56 to go in regulation, Cal Burke causes chaos in the Wranglers zone with a power play goal. He scored deep in the zone, fell into the crease, and knocked the post off so it wasn’t officially ruled a goal until it was reviewed.

Just a goal away from a tie game, Henderson opted to pull their goalie with 1:34 to go in the third. Calgary defended them well and Ignatjew stopped the couple of shots he saw. Clark Bishop was able to spring the puck and pass it up to himself off his skate and made a diving effort to direct the puck into the empty net.

Bishop did succeed in his effort to score his second goal of the game with just 19 seconds to go in regulation and gave the Wranglers more breathing room to finish up the game. Lucas Ciona and Walker Duehr assisted on this last goal and Calgary picked up a 5-3 win in Henderson, NV.

Waltteri Ignatjew stopped 32 out of 35 shots in his AHL debut and picked up his first win. Calgary ended up putting up a total of 30 shots and nine skaters earned points in this win.

Rory Kerins – 2G

Clark Bishop – 2G

Ilya Nikolaev – 1A

Dryden Hunt – 2A

Lucas Ciona – 1A

Jakob Pelletier – 3A

Walker Duehr – 1G, 1A

Sam Morton – 1A

Jonathan Aspirot – 1A

This week’s road trip ends with a rematch against the Silver Knights on Saturday night. Calgary looks to sweep and make their three game winning streak four. Saturday’s game starts an hour earlier, with puck drop at 7:00 p.m. MT.