logo
FlamesNation has no direct affiliation to the Calgary Flames, Calgary Sports and Entertainment, NHL, or NHLPA
Recap: Sam Morton stars in 6-3 Wranglers victory over the Roadrunners
alt
Photo credit: David Moll/Calgary Wranglers
Paige Siewert
Dec 8, 2024, 10:00 ESTUpdated: Dec 8, 2024, 01:38 EST
Comments
The Calgary Wranglers wrapped up their weekend series against the Tucson Roadrunners on Saturday with a well-attended game at the Saddledome. 5,023 fans took in this game and witnessed the Wranglers complete their sweep over the Roadrunners.
Calgary took off in scoring and beat Tucson 6-3.

Game at a glance

Tucson went with their same netminder this game with Matthew Villalta in net. Calgary on the other end, opted for Waltteri Ignatjew between the pipes to help manage the load on this back to back. Calgary got off to another great energetic start and activated the goal horn going in no time.
William Stromgren scored another early game-opening goal in this match-up when he stripped the puck from a Tucson skater and scored on Villalta’s blocker side. This was assisted by Jeremie Poirier and came just 3:01 into the game. 
Even with the Wranglers getting the first penalty call, they still continued their push and almost had a shorthanded goal. After this penalty expired, David Silye and Andrew Agozzino got tied up with each other in front of the bench and were each tagged for roughing at 10:43. Shortly after this offsetting minor was called, Kevin Connauton scored an equalizing goal at 11:04.
A couple of minutes later, Yan Kuznetsov tried to get to the rebound to chip it out of the way, but it ended up on Josh Doan’s stick and he beat Ignatjew at 13:11. This go ahead goal for Tucson was assisted by Aky Raty and Andrew Agozzino. 
That was the only scoring through the first and the Roadrunners had a 2-1 lead over the Wranglers after one complete period. Calgary doubled them up on shots 8-4 in the opening 20 minutes. 
The Wranglers didn’t let this lead remain for long with Jeremie Poirier scoring early in the second to even things up. Poirier received a pass from Jonathan Aspirot and got himself deeper into the zone to take a shot off the crossbar and in. Sam Morton also assisted on this equalizer at 1:16.
Shortly after, the Wranglers got the lead back with Rory Kerins’ 16th goal of the season at 3:02. William Stromgren came up on the rush and set up Kerins for a snipe. Dryden Hunt picked up the secondary assist on this marker to make it a 3-2 game.
Closer to the midway mark of this period, Calgary was on a power play and they got another goal on the board when Sam Honzek passed the puck behind his back to Sam Morton, who was waiting for a backdoor feed. Martin Frk also got a point on this special teams tally.
The Wranglers held control for most of the second period but the Roadrunners scored before the end of the period to make it a 4-3 game. Hunter Drew was sprung on a breakaway and no other skaters could get to him before he put the puck past the Wranglers netminder. Travis Barron and Curtis Douglas assisted on this marker at 18:07.
At the end of the second period, the Wranglers narrowly remained in the lead with a 4-3 score and they doubled up their opponents on shots again 14-7. In the third, the Roadrunners exploded in the shot category but Ignatjew prevented all 20 from them from crossing the goal line. Instead, the Wranglers scored another pair of goals in this frame to give themselves some more breathing room.
The first came at 12:48 when Morton scored his second goal of the night on the power play once again with a one-timer from the offensive zone face-off dot. Jonathan Aspirot and Martin Frk picked up their second assists of the evening on this goal.
As time ran down, Dryden Hunt scored on the empty net, shorthanded as well. This was at 18:33 with helpers going to Jonathan Aspirot and Lucas Ciona. This game finished up at 6-3 but the action didn’t stop until minutes after the final horn. There was some fighting going on at ice level but only Alex Gallant got any penalty minutes for it. He was tagged for roughing, unsportsmanlike conduct and a misconduct for continuing the altercation. The positive was the Wranglers won and swept the Roadrunners to split their season series.
Sam Morton was given the first star in this game, William Stromgren was the second star and Jeremie Poirier was the third star. With the big shot push from the visitors in the third, shots finished an even 31-31. 

Scoring stat summary

Jeremie Poirier – 1G, 1A
Rory Kerins – 1G
William Stomgren – 1G, 1A
Dryden Hunt – 1G, 1A
Lucas Ciona – 1A
Martin Frk – 2A
Sam Honzek – 1A
Sam Morton – 2G, 1A
Jonathan Aspirot – 3A

Highlights

Next up

It’s been a few weeks since the Wranglers had a midweek series but they’ll get back into that schedule in the upcoming week. They continue their homestand with another recent rematch against the Manitoba Moose. They just played them at the start of December and see them on home ice this upcoming Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. MT.

News

Breaking News