The Calgary Wranglers looked to start 2026 better than they left 2025, with a rematch against the Colorado Eagles. Their last game on Dec. 30 resulted in a 6-5 overtime loss that the Wranglers played well enough to earn the win. Head Coach Brett Sutter put it best last game that they, “found a way to lose instead of finding a way to win.”

For this game, they got behind 2-0, then started making their way back. William Stromgren scored before the end of the first, and Martin Frk scored in the second to even things up. They weren’t able to decide anything in regulation but the Wranglers managed to flip the script and deliver the Eagles their first overtime loss of the season. The final score was 3-2.

Lineup notes

Beyond switching things up in net, the Wranglers only made one change for this game. Andrew Basha came out of the lineup and Carter Wilkie came in. Matvei Gridin was not yet ready to return for this game but could still be back this week. The Wranglers still play two more games against the Tucson Roadrunners on Friday and Sunday.

Wranglers lines

Dryden Hunt – Rory Kerins – William Stromgren

Carter King – Sam Morton – Martin Frk

Lucas Ciona – Clark Bishop – Parker Bell

Alex Gallant – David Silye – Carter Wilkie

Etienne Morin – Nick Cicek

Artem Grushnikov – Daniil Miromanov

Turner Ottenbreit – Jeremie Poirier

Owen Say

Game at a glance

Owen Say got the start between the pipes for this game and the Eagles also switched things up in net, putting Isak Posch in. Calgary ended up getting the best look of the opening minutes at 4:25, when William Stromgren, Rory Kerins and Dryden Hunt were jamming at a puck in front. The play was whistled down, and no scoring came of it. Shortly after at 4:45, William Stromgren took the first penalty of the game for slashing.

Calgary managed to kill off Stromgren’s call, and about a minute later, the Eagles took their first penalty of the game for hooking. They managed to get 26 extra seconds before the whistle with an extra attacker as Owen Say went off for the delayed call. Early in the power play, the Wranglers turned the puck over and gave up a shorthanded rush. William Stromgren hustled in and managed to break up the play, allowing Martin Frk to take the puck the other way. Frk took a huge slap shot from the offensive zone faceoff circle and was stopped by Posch.

At 10:33, Alex Gallant was at center ice chirping an Eagles player. This got him sent to the box for roughing. After this penalty was killed off, Taylor Makar (brother of Cale Makar) passed up to Nikita Prishchepov from behind the net, and Prishchepov banked the puck in off the post. This goal came at 13:20.

Nearly two minutes later, the Eagles added another to their lead. The puck was cleared in behind the Wranglers net and Alex Barre-Boulet set up Tye Felhaber for a one-timer in tight. This goal came at 15:19.

At 16:15, the Wranglers were given a chance to get some momentum back when Jack Ahcan was called for delay of game. At 17:04, William Stromgren scored off a wrist shot to cut the Eagles lead in half. His goal was set up by Dryden Hunt and Rory Kerins and put Stromgren up to seven points in three games and Rory Kerins up to 10 straight games with points.

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Shortly after this goal, Lucas Ciona was tangled up with an Eagle player in the Eagles zone and Ronnie Attard and he dropped the gloves as a result. It was a brief toussle and both guys went to the locker room early with fighting majors. Owen Say stopped a couple of high danger shots, including a redirection and kept the score where it was by the end of the period. The Eagles led the Wranglers 2-1 after 20 minutes and also had an 11-10 edge in shots.

Ciona and Attard came out for the second to serve the rest of their penalties, then at 2:30, Sean Behrens was called for holding. Calgary managed one shot on net prior to the end of the power play but couldn’t get much going for them on the man advantage.

At 5:56, Behrens went right back to the box for high-sticking Carter Wilkie. Wilkie actually ended up losing a tooth on this play, so it made for an easy call. This call drew a double minor. 1:20 into this power play, Martin Frk scored to make it a 2-2 game. Sam Morton started a passing play to Dryden Hunt then Frk called for the puck and William Stromgren got it over to him to even up the scoring. On this play, Eagles netminder, Isak Posch lost his stick and was playing with one of the skater’s sticks. Frk took full advantage and this goal came at 7:16.

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At 8:07, Lucas Ciona was called for slashing and the Wranglers were back on the penalty kill. They killed it off, then the Wranglers had a huge scoring chance at 12:38 when Martin Frk split the defencemen and set up Sam Morton for a shot on the doorstep. Somehow, the puck stayed out on this one.

They had another high danger chance a couple of minutes later that Dryden Hunt almost scored on. After Frk’s goal, you could feel the Wranglers were itching for the go-ahead goal. Even Carter King had a breakaway chance at 18:27 and tried a backhand shot that was stopped. At the end of the second period, the score was 2-2 and the Wranglers outshot the Eagles 14-8 in the middle frame.

The third period continued that same energy the Wranglers were showing through the back half of the second. Artem Grushnikov was taking quite a beating this game between blocked shots and hits and finally had enough. At 6:46, he and Matthew Stienburg were shoving each other along the boards and dropped the gloves briefly. They took their respective spots in the box for fighting.

During this stretch, Nick Cicek also needed some helmet repairs so the Wranglers could only rotate between four defenders for a few minutes. They got back to a regular rotation and you could tell the players were getting antsy. Clark Bishop had a play whistled down for a high stick that he took a second look at an iPad for then the Eagles protested that a puck that went out of play was off the stick of a Wrangler. In the AHL, only goals are reviewed so the game continued without calls in both of these scenarios.

At 15:24 though, Daniil Miromanov was called for slashing. The Wranglers managed to kill off this penalty and this left just over two and a half minutes to try and decide this game in regulation. No scoring changes happened in the rest of regulation so this game went into overtime. Shots in the third were 7-6 Calgary.

28 seconds into overtime, T.J. Tynan was called for interference on Clark Bishop. Right after he went to the box, the Wranglers called a timeout to strategize with this man advantage. By 1:16 into overtime, Dryden Hunt put the puck in the back of the net to finish off a passing play and win the game. His goal was assisted by Martin Frk and Rory Kerins.

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Calgary had the only two shots in overtime and the overall shots finished at 33-25 for the Wranglers. Calgary went three for six on the power play and killed off all four of the Eagles power plays. Dryden Hunt was awarded the first star in this game and William Stromgren earned the second.

Brett Sutter said post game:

“Great to get the power play going. I thought they’ve had a couple good nights and to see those big guys moving pucks and behind confident and making plays is huge. So big game for us. We needed that two points and it’s a good job by them.”

Scoring stat summary

William Stromgren – 1G, 1A

Dryden Hunt – 1G, 2A

Rory Kerins – 2A

Martin Frk – 1G, 1A

Highlights

Next up

Calgary is right back in action on Friday night to host the Tucson Roadrunners. They play on Friday and Sunday, with their next game getting started at 7:00 p.m. MT.