The Calgary Wranglers kicked off their second home series of the week against the Abbotsford Canucks on Saturday night. They struck first in this game and kept control of the first half of the game, but the Canucks came back with a couple in the middle frame. Etienne Morin’s first AHL goal forced an overtime but the Wranglers fell just over a minute into the extra frame. The final score was 3-2.

Lineup notes

Prior to puck drop, the team announced two injury statuses. One being goaltender Ivan Prosvetov still on a week to week status and the other being forward Aydar Suniev. Suniev is listed on a week to week status with an upper body injury. This comes as an unfortunate loss for the Wranglers as Suniev had a goal and assist in the last game against the Coachella Valley Firebirds and was on a three game point streak.

Since the last time the Wranglers played, Dryden Hunt was also called back up to the Flames, so he was not an option for this game. With no Suniev and no Hunt, this allowed Andrew Basha and Alex Gallant to get into the lineup.

Wranglers lines

William Stromgren – Rory Kerins – Martin Frk

Justin Kirkland – Sam Morton – Matvei Gridin

Parker Bell – Clark Bishop – Andrew Basha

Alex Gallant – Carter King – Lucas Ciona

Artem Grushnikov – Daniil Miromanov

Etienne Morin – Nick Cicek

Turner Ottenbreit – Jeremie Poirier

Owen Say

Game at a glance

The Wranglers went back to Owen Say for this game after he was pulled on Thursday late in the first period. Starting for the Canucks was Nikita Tolpilo. Calgary had the first few shots on goal off the jump before the Canucks took a couple the other way. The Wranglers managed to open the scoring in the first half of the period to take an early lead.

Rory Kerins hustled into the zone and got the puck after skating around the back of the net and took the shot. A shot that was well placed on Patera’s short side and beat him off the crossbar. His goal at 6:28 was unassisted.

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Pretty soon after this goal, Nick Cicek was called for tripping. Calgary managed to kill this first penalty off and play continued. The rest of the period was pretty even back and forth and while the Canucks had better grade A opportunities, they were struggling to connect on passes and shots. At the end of the first, the Wranglers led the Canucks 1-0. Shots were 12-11 Calgary through the first frame.

In the second, Matvei Gridin was called for tripping early in the frame at 1:16. The Canucks registered a couple of shots on the power play and kept the moment rolling beyond this man advantage.

The Canucks managed to even things up at 11:53 when Nick Poisson was being boxed out by Clark Bishop and he still got a shot around him and past Say. Just over a minute after this goal, Alex Gallant and Chase Wouters dropped the gloves behind the play for a quick tussle.

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The Canucks got their first lead of the night at 16:20 off a broken play in front of the net. Mackenzie MacEachern was waiting on the doorstep. Clark Bishop turned the puck over and MacEachern shot the puck top corner and it just barely slid over the goal line.

Matvei Gridin got a good look before the period came to a close and the Canucks went into the second intermission with a 2-1 lead. Shots in the middle frame were 12-7 Abbotsford. Early in the third, Owen Say was having to flash a lot of leather but he was keeping things solid between the pipes for Calgary.

Calgary evened the playing field at 5:43 when Etienne Morin scored his first goal as a Wrangler. He took a shot from the point that slipped through the pads of Patera to make it a 2-2 game. This wasn’t quite his first professional goal as he scored earlier this year in the ECHL with Rapid City. You could see the excitement on his face and William Stromgren and Nick Cicek picked up the assists.

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Later in the period at 10:31, Jiri Patera skated off the ice for a delayed penalty call. The Canucks kept possession of the puck for almost 45 seconds before Calgary touched it and Nick Cicek officially took a seat for cross-checking.

Calgary killed off this penalty and had a power play of their own shortly after. Rory Kerins was tripped up in the offensive zone and this sent Chase Wouters to the box with 6:02 remaining in regulation. This power play was cut short, however, when Justin Kirkland got a high stick on Jett Woo.

Later in the third, it was the Canucks who got the better of the chances in the dying minutes but neither side could find the back of the net by the end of regulation. The score was 2-2 after 60 minutes and the Wranglers and Canucks would need at least overtime to decide the game. Shots in the third were 9-8 Abbotsford.

To kick off overtime, Rory Kerins, Martin Frk and Nick Cicek were the first trio out on the ice. On the second shift, Daniil Miromanov made a very high IQ play to stop the wraparound attempt, then seconds later, the game winning goal was in the back of the net. Jonathan Lekkermiaki was the goal scorer off a hard wrist shot. This was the only registered shot in the extra frame.

The Wranglers fell 3-2 in overtime and the only player on the three stars was Etienne Morin as the third star. Morin said after the game:

“I’ve been waiting for that for a while, that’s for sure. It’s a dream growing up.”

Morin scored his first professional goal with the Rush a couple of weeks ago against the Idaho Steelheads on Nov. 28. When he was asked about the comparison between the two, he said:

“It’s pretty much the same thing. Just the first pro goal and obviously it’s not with the same team so different emotions, different feelings but both of them were really great and I was really happy.”

Scoring stat summary

Rory Kerins – 1G

Etienne Morin – 1G

William Stromgren – 1A

Nick Cicek – 1A

Highlights

Next up

This series is a back to back so the Wranglers and Canucks will be battling it out again less than 24 hours after game one. It’ll be a mid-afternoon game on Sunday with a 4:00 p.m. MT puck drop.