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Recap: Wranglers beat Canucks, punch coach’s ticket to AHL All-Star Game
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Photo credit: David Moll/Calgary Wranglers
Paige Siewert
Dec 31, 2024, 10:00 ESTUpdated: Dec 31, 2024, 02:41 EST
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The Calgary Wranglers didn’t let the holiday season slow them down as they hosted the Abbotsford Canucks for their first game back from the break. A potential win held more weight in this game as where they stood in the standings would determine whether or not their head coach was going to be chosen to coach the Pacific Division in the upcoming All-Star game in early February.
They secured the win with a 4-3 decision and punched their coach’s ticket to Palm Desert. Whether that is Trent Cull or Joe Cirella, depends on who is coaching at that point in time.

Lineup notes

There were just a couple of lineup changes for this game. Parker Bell was scratched and Trevor Janicke was in the lineup for his third game with the team. Everyone else from their previous game was in the lineup for this match-up. Jonathan Aspirot was unavailable for this game due to his participation in the Spengler Cup.

Game at a glance

The starting netminders for this game were Devin Cooley for the Wranglers and Arturs Silovs for the Canucks. Calgary didn’t give Silovs any chance to settle in and were putting up shots in the first 30 seconds of the game. Shortly after, they lit the lamp for the first time in this game.
Artem Grushnikov opened up the scoring with his first goal of the season and his first goal as a Wrangler. He ripped a rocket of a slapshot at 1:11 that beat Silovs with ease. Ilya Solovyov and Martin Frk assisted ont his opening marker.
The celebration of his goal was short lived as he was called for tripping just 13 seconds later. This gave the visitors some time to get on the offensive side of things but Cooley didn’t let anything through. After this and another penalty kill came and went, William Stromgren scored his eighth goal of the season in his 100th AHL game.
This marker came at 6:22 when Stromgren sprung himself on a partial breakaway, took a shot and received a rebound from Rory Kerins that he buried. 
It was pretty back and forth after this goal and Calgary had another penalty to kill off later in the period. They didn’t make their way onto their first power play until 17:31. The period finished without any scoring changes and the Wranglers led the Canucks 2-0 after 20 minutes. Shots through the first period were 15-11 Abbotsford.
In the second period, even strength survived for about five minutes before the Wranglers were sent to the box again. This time it was Jeremie Poirier for high sticking. Just over a minute later, the Canucks’ standout scorer, Jonathan Lekkerimaki scored a power play goal off a diagonal shot from the offensive zone faceoff dot. After this goal, there was a bit of a null in chances with just seven shots between these teams in the next 14 minutes of play. By the end of the second period, the Wranglers remained in the lead with a 2-1 score. The shots in the second period were significantly lower with eight for Calgary and five for Abbotsford.
Artem Grushnikov was injured later in the period and in a lot of pain on the bench. He needed help down the tunnel for the second intermission and did not return to this game. This put some more workload on the blue liners with only five of them available.
In the third period, it felt like the Canucks were building up the momentum and hungry for the next goal. They would find it three quarters of the way through the frame with a lamp lighter at 15:09. Nate Smith beat Cooley off a deflection of Jett Woo’s shot. 
Just under two minutes later, Clark Bishop took matters into his own hands and earned Calgary a one goal lead once again. Bishop scored off a partial toe drag shot he put top shelf. Hunter Brzustewicz and Yan Kuznetsov assisted on this marker at 17:06.
At 18:02, the Canucks pulled Silovs to try and even the score up again. 40 seconds after he headed to the bench, Bishop scored again into the empty net. Yan Kuznetsov and Martin Frk picked up the assists.
Arturs Silovs came back between the pipes and then was pulled over to the beach again at 19:36. With just nine seconds to go in regulation, Abbotsford snuck another puck in off a behind the net feed that Linus Karlsson put past Cooley.
Calgary held their one goal lead for the remaining nine seconds and secured the 4-3 win. Shots in this game finished 32-26 favouring the Canucks. The three stars of the night went to William Stromgren for the third star, Yan Kuznetsov for the second and Clark Bishop for the first.

Scoring stat summary

Artem Grushnikov – 1G
Hunter Brzustewicz – 1A
Rory Kerins – 1A
Ilya Solovyov – 1A
William Stromgren – 1G
Clark Bishop – 2G
Martin Frk – 2A
Yan Kuznetsov – 2A

Highlights

Next up

This series continues into the New Year with a New Year’s Day matinee. They’ll play at home on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. MT when Calgary looks for the sweep over Abbotsford.

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