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Recap: Energetic home game earns Wranglers a 6-1 win over the Moose
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Photo credit: Eric Boldt/Calgary Wranglers
Paige Siewert
Dec 11, 2024, 12:00 ESTUpdated: Dec 11, 2024, 10:42 EST
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The Calgary Wranglers got their week going with an exciting home game against the Manitoba Moose on Tuesday night. They previously played Manitoba at the end of November/start of December, which both went the Wranglers’ way.
With another good start from the team in the Flaming Ws, they helped pace the way for a solid 60-minute effort that resulted in a 6-1 win.

Game at a glance

The Wranglers rolled with the same line pairings for this game and opted to start Devin Cooley in net. On the other end, Thomas Milic got the start for the Moose. The Wranglers started with another tally in the opening minutes of play with a goal from Yan Kuznetsov at 1:41. This is the third game in a row the Wranglers have scored before the game was even five minutes old. 
For this play, Sam Morton won the faceoff then Adam Klapka passed the puck up to Yan Kuznetsov, who ripped a one-timer home. The official assists went to Klapka and Lucas Ciona.
The energy was going early in this game with a fight less than a minute later. Tyson Empey and Alex Gallant dropped the gloves at centre ice and fired up their benches. 
There were a few more chances for the Wranglers on the power play throughout the rest of the opening period but the score remained deadlocked at 1-0. Shots after the first period were 11-7 for Calgary.
William Stromgren didn’t get a goal in the opening minutes of this game like he did in the previous two but still continued his trend of early period tallies. He scored just 33 seconds into the second period off a set up from his linemates Dryden Hunt and Rory Kerins. 
After this goal, a long string of penalties hit both sides of the ice. 18 minutes of penalties were called between both teams and the Wranglers were able to score right in the middle of them. Dryden Hunt scored his sixth goal of the season on the power play at 14:33 after chipping away at a rebound that bounced around for a bit. Adam Klapka and Rory Kerins both assisted on this third goal of the game. 
Calgary found another marker on the man-advantage this period with an unassisted breakaway out of the box from Martin Frk. His goal came at 17:21.
At the end of the period, Jaret Anderson-Dolan was dealt a 10-minute unsportsmanlike misconduct call and the Wranglers went into the second intermission up 4-0. Shots through the middle frame were 15-10 for Calgary. The third started with the type of goal you don’t want to see against a goaltender having a good night. The Moose scored their first and only goal just 1:05 into the period after Parker Ford snuck the puck five-hole on Devin Cooley. 
They didn’t let this goal take away any of their steam however, and Sam Honzek finally got the goal he has been pining over the last few games. He came up on a partial breakaway and scored on Milic at 4:38. Head Coach, Trent Cull also noted after the game how Honzek’s been playing with some more confidence the last few games and it showed in this one. 
This game didn’t go one without any more penalty calls but after an offsetting call between Ben King and Dryden Hunt at 9:30, they still were able to sneak in one more goal on the scoreboard. Rory Kerins scored his 17th goal of the season at 15:14. Hunter Brzustewicz got the puck to Hunt on the drop pass and Hunt fed it through a couple of Moose skaters for Kerins to finish the play on a quick release. This came on the power play and was the third Wranglers power play goal of the night. 
This was also Dryden Hunt’s 17th assist of the season and these two have skated together all season. Their line has consisted of Jakob Pelletier before his call-up and most recently William Stromgren in the last few games in Pelletier’s absence. Hunt spoke about his play with Kerins this season saying, 
“We always knew he was a good player, he just needed the opportunity. I’m just really lucky to play with him. Quite frankly, it’s nice to make plays and have guys finish. It’s been a lot of fun making a lot of plays and the chemistry has been great. Makes coming to the rink a lot of fun.”
That was the last goal of the game and with the gap in scoring, it wasn’t worth it for the Moose to make any moves with timeouts, goaltending switches or pulling their netminder for an extra attacker. Instead, they finished the game and the Wranglers secured a 6-1 win. Calgary finished with 40 shots and Cooley stopped 30 out of 31 shots from the Moose.
Rory Kerins was awarded the first star of the game with his one goal and two assist night, Dryden Hunt was the second star for the same stat line and Devin Cooley was awarded the third star for his game between the pipes.

Scoring stat summary

Hunter Brzustewicx – 1A
Rory Kerins – 1G, 2A
Ilya Solovyov – 1A
William Stromgren – 1G
Dryden Hunt – 1G, 2A
Lucas Ciona – 1A
Clark Bishop – 1A
Martin Frk – 1G
Yan Kuznetsov – 1G
Sam Honzek – 1G
Adam Klapka – 2A

Highlights

Next up

It’s another quick turnaround for the Wranglers with a back-to-back against the Moose. They’ll play their rematch on Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. MT. Calgary looks to keep their perfect season series record against Manitoba with the potential to sweep this midweek series before they hit the road for the weekend.

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