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Series Preview: Wranglers start season with home series against Canucks

Photo credit: Photo Credit: Darren Scott Francis/Abbotsford Canucks

By Paige Siewert

Oct 2, 2026, 12:00 EDTUpdated: Oct 2, 2026, 11:51 EDT

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The Calgary Wranglers kick off the 2026-27 season with a home series against the Abbotsford Canucks this weekend. After multiple changes over the off-season, this will be quite a different team this year but some of the core from last year remains. This will start to show how this group works together and what kind of chemistry they’ve built in Flames and Wranglers training camp.

Opening night roster

Calgary

Forwards – Rory Kerins, Will Dineen, William Stromgren, Dryden Hunt, Carter Wilkie, Ben Jones, Alex Gallant, Tyson Gross, Jonathan Castagna, Luke Philp, Sam Morton, Andrew Basha, Aydar Suniev, Alex Nylander

Defencemen – Mike Benning, Axel Hurtig, Abram Wiebe, Kent Anderson, Jake Livingstone, Kyle Walker, Derek Forbort, Tyson Feist, Hunter Brzustewicz

Goaltenders – Arsenii Sergeev, Kirill Zarubin

Injured – Tyler Inamoto

Abbotsford

Forwards – Vilmer Alriksson, Ben Berard, Austin Brimmer, Sean Chisholm, Gabriel Chiarot, Braeden Cootes, Trey Fix-Wolansky, Ty Mueller, Riley Patterson, Anri Ravinskis, Ilya Safonov, Bennett Schimek, Matt Stienburg, Cooper Walker, Chase Wouters

Defencemen – Joe Arntsen, Isaac Belliveau, Cole Clayton, Kirill Kudryavtsev, Sawyer Mynio, Tim Rego, Jimmy Schuldt, Gavin White

Goaltenders – Ty Young, Nikita Tolopilo

Projected lineup

The Wranglers played two pre-season games last Sunday and Monday and the lineup they carried for their first game will likely resemble their season opening lineup the most. The most significant missing pieces was Luke Philp, who missed those games for the birth of his first child, and Aydar Suniev, who was still with the big club. Philp’s back with the team and will likely still slot in this lineup on the third or fourth line, while Suniev is a safe bet for one of the top two lines.

Here’s roughly how things looked during their opening pre-season game:

Rory Kerins – Tyson Gross – William Stromgren

Dryden Hunt – Ben Jones – Alex Nylander

Andrew Basha – Sam Morton – Carter Wilkie

Alex Gallant – Jonathan Castagna – Will Dineen

Abram Wiebe – Hunter Brzustewicz

Mike Benning – Kyle Walker

Axel Hurtig – Jake Livingstone

Arsenii Sergeev

Kirill Zarubin (back-up)

Notes and expectations

The Wranglers made an announcement on Thursday that they will name their captain at the season opener. Previous captain Clark Bishop signed with the Syracuse Crunch leaving a vacancy now. Remaining leaders from last season include Dryden Hunt, Sam Morton, Rory Kerins and Alex Gallant. Other newcomers to the team wore letters in pre-season games like Mike Benning, Ben Jones and Jake Livingstone.

Calgary Wranglers

@AHLWranglers

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Where does the C belong??? Find out at Home Opener Oct. 2 @ 7 PM MT

Watch on X

10:21 PM · Oct 1, 2026

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The team also brought back former Flames defencemen Derek Forbort on a PTO as of Thursday. This will be a good add as the team was expecting Andreas Englund to be a veteran blueliner before he was claimed off waivers by Detroit. Forbort may be able to take that spot now and provide that mentor role that others in the past like Daniil Miromanov and Nick Cicek had last season.

Compared to the pre-season series, both rosters will be at their best lineup while the previous games were a mix of AHLers and ECHLers trying to earn a spot. With the cuts now, the rosters are ready and the players are ready to start the 72 game grind to try and qualify and compete in the Calder Cup playoffs.

This series kicks off on Friday at 7:00 p.m. MT and wraps up on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. MT. Streaming is available for a fee on Flo Hockey and Daily Faceoff Calgary contributors Ryan Pike and I will have live updates on X (formerly Twitter).

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