The Calgary Wranglers and Abbotsford Canucks wrapped up a back to back series with a Saturday night game. Calgary took game one on Friday by a 5-1 score and looked for the sweep the following night. Their opponent had other ideas when they scored three in the second and ended up flipping the score in their favour to beat Calgary 5-1 and split the weekend series.

Lineup notes

Now that it is the month of February, Alex Gallant has officially served his whole six game suspension from mid-January. He returned to the lineup for this game on the fourth line. Coming out of the lineup was Sam Honzek. There wasn’t a lot of word on Honzek, just that he is battling a lower body injury and his timeline for return is unknown at this time.

Wranglers lines

William Stromgren – Rory Kerins – Dryden Hunt

Lucas Ciona – Sam Morton – Martin Frk

Parker Bell – David Silye – Jonathan Aspirot

Alex Gallant – Brett Davis – Connor Mylymok

Yan Kuznetsov – Hunter Brzustewicz

Jarred Tinordi – Ilya Solovyov

Artem Grushnikov – Jeremie Poirier

Devin Cooley

Connor Murphy (backup)

Game at a glance

Devin Cooley got his first back to back start since returning from injury and was between the pipes for this game. For Abbotsford, they switched things up between the pipes and Nikita Tolopilo got the start. The opening half of the period didn’t have a lot of spirited action. It felt more like settling in during the first 10 minutes of game time. The first penalty went to Alex Gallant for tripping at 9:32 but the Wranglers were able to kill this first penalty off.

Martin Frk had a really good look just past the 13 minute mark of the period but was shut down by the Canucks’ netminder. He tried for another one at 17:21 and this one found the back of the net off a shot from his knees. Sam Morton got the lone assist on this opening goal.

49 seconds later, the Canucks answered back with a goal from Aatu Raty. Raty also scored off a shot from his knees and his marker was assisted by Nils Aman and Arshdeep Bains. That wrapped up the scoring in the first period and the score was an even 1-1 after 20 minutes of play. Shots were an even 8-8.

In the second period, the effort felt pretty one-sided and it showed on the scoreboard. Calgary got a few looks in the opening five minutes and had a chance to pull ahead when they went on the power play at 6:37. Unfortunately, they were unable to register a shot on this man advantage and play carried on.

The back half of the period is when the Canucks took off on the scoring side. It started with another goal from Arshdeep Bains at 13:31. Bains scored the lone goal for Abbotsford in Friday’s game and beat Cooley on a wrist shot in the slot. Akito Hirose and Christian Wolanin assisted on this go ahead goal.

Unfortunately for Calgary, the next shot on Cooley also went in at 14:41. Carsen Twarynski took a shot from the point through traffic that beat Cooley bar down. Kirill Kudryavstev and Dino Kambeitz assisted on this marker.

Calgary’s chance of coming back was cut short by a penalty against David Silye at 16:12. The Canucks scored on this man advantage just over a minute later off a point blank one timer from Max Sasson at 17:19. His goal was assisted by Sammy Blais and Christian Wolanin.

Calgary got a few shots on goal before the end of the period but remained behind 4-1 after two complete periods. Shots through the middle frame were 15-10 Abbotsford. The Wranglers had a noticeable push in the third period but could not figure out how to get the puck past Tolopilo.

They had a chance on a power play at 10:53 but only registered one shot on this man advantage. With 5:19 to go in regulation, the team pulled Cooley for the extra attacker but the Canucks made it a 5-1 game with an empty netter at 16:05 from Kirill Kudryavstev.

Cooley came back out for the remainder of the game and the Canucks won off their five unanswered goal effort. The final score was 5-1 and the Canucks managed to keep the whole top line of Rory Kerins, William Stromgren and Dryden Hunt off the scoresheet this series. Shots finished up 29-28 for the Canucks.

Scoring stat summary

Martin Frk – 1G

Sam Morton – 1A

Next up

While the Wranglers will be away from game action until Friday (Feb. 7), Rory Kerins, Devin Cooley and Brett Sutter will be doing hockey things at the AHL All-Star Classic for the next two days. Sutter will be coaching Team Pacific and the Wranglers players will be participating in the skills competition on Sunday and the All-Star challenge on Monday. The All-Star challenge will be a round-robin three-on-three mini tournament. This event is being streamed on AHLtv on Flo Hockey, NHL Network and TSN.

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