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Recap: Wranglers drop third straight in first meeting with the Reign
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Photo credit: Angela Burger/Calgary Wranglers
Paige Siewert
Dec 19, 2024, 10:00 ESTUpdated: Dec 19, 2024, 01:45 EST
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The Calgary Wranglers and Ontario Reign met for the first time this season on Wednesday night. Going into this game, they both had mini streaks going. Calgary dropped their last two in a row and Ontario won their last three in a row. Unfortunately for the Wranglers, they both added a game to their winning and losing streaks when Calgary dropped this game 2-1 to the Reign.

Lineup notes

After two straight losses, the game plan switched up a bit for this match-up. Wranglers captain, Clark Bishop was scratched for the first time this season and instead, they skated with three alternate captains: Dryden Hunt, Alex Gallant and Martin Frk. Returning to the lineup was Devin Cooley, but interestingly, Connoy Murphy backed him up and not Waltteri Ignatjew. 
With Bishop out, Sam Honzek got some time centring the second line and Trevor Janicke slotted into the fourth line for his second game with the team. Line combinations with those changes are shown below.

Wranglers lines

William Stromgren – Rory Kerins – Dryden Hunt 
Martin Frk – Sam Honzek – Adam Klapka
Lucas Ciona – Sam Morton – David Silye
Parker Bell –  Trevor Janicke – Alex Gallant
Ilya Solovyov – Jonathan Aspirot 
Artem Grushnikov – Jeremie Poirier 
Yan Kuznetsov – Hunter Brzustewicz
Devin Cooley
Connor Murphy

Game at a glance

Devin Cooley was back with the team after his emergency recall last weekend. He got the start in this game and was put up again Erik Portillo on the other end for the Reign. It was a pretty smooth first half of the period with very few stoppages. The first stoppage came at 9:55 when Martin Frk was called for boarding.
The way the timing worked out, Frk headed to the box as he was welcomed back to Ontario. He played three seasons with the Reign between 2019-2022 and stood up in the box to wave to his former fanbase. He eventually made his way out of the box with a successful penalty kill from his current team, the Wranglers.
The rest of the first period effort was most Ontario and Calgary didn’t register a shot for the last 12 minutes of the period. Cooley held it down for his squad and at the end of the opening 20 minutes, the game was scoreless and Calgary was outshot 12-4.
The second period had an interesting play early. Jeff Malott sprung on a breakaway in the opening minute and when Jonathan Aspirot was trying to catch up with him, Malott lost an edge and fell. Aspirot’s stick was close enough that it was called as tripping. Both teams protested with Aspirot feeling there wasn’t contact and the Reign questing why there was no penalty shot.
Either way, this penalty kill was successful and the Wranglers got their chance on the power play shortly after when Arthur Kaliyev was called for hooking at 4:48. In the last 20 seconds or so of the power play, Sam Morton scored the opening goal. Jeremie Poirier started the rush and Sam Honzek set up Morton with a feed he buried at 6:22.
The shots on goal died down after this goal and picked up again in the second half of the period when these teams exchanged penalties again. Calgary looked as if they’d go into the second intermission with the lead, but the Reign altered that fate with a goal at 18:31. Shawn Element scored the equalizer after a quick turnover play deep in the zone. Devin Cooley didn’t have time to react and it beat him point blank. Element’s goal was assisted by Jacob Doty and Tyler Madden.
At the end of the second period, Calgary was evened up with Ontario and shots were 14-4 Ontario in that frame. Going into the third, the Wranglers only had a total of nine shots up on the board. Even then, this number didn’t climb by much in the third frame. The Reign had most of the zone time in the first half of the period and at 9:58, they earned the go ahead goal with a marker from Charles Hudon. Hudon came into the Wranglers zone on an odd man rush and instead of passing it across, took the shot himself and beat Cooley. Jeff Malott earned the lone helper.
After this goal, there was a little bit of push back from Calgary but nothing that caused any problems for their opponents. The coaching staff opted to pull Cooley at 18:49 and neither side put any other shots up for the rest of regulation.
Ontario had the puck behind their net in the dying seconds and corralled it to avoid one more chance from Calgary. Adam Klapka put up a hit behind the boards to try and cough the puck up but as the final buzzer sounded, the Reign skaters took issue with that and some extra-curriculars wrapped up this game. Ontario won 2-1 and shots finished 38-14 for the home team. 

Scoring stat summary

Sam Morton – 1G
Sam Honzek – 1A
Jeremie Poirier – 1A

Next up

The Wranglers have completed their three game road trip and are back home to host the Henderson Silver Knights on Friday and Sunday. Friday’s game gets going at 7:00 p.m. MT and Sunday’s game starts at 1:00 p.m. Sunday’s game is expected to be a fun one with Winter Wranglerfest, the first annual Christmas game with giveaways and custom Christmas jerseys among other fun Christmas activities. The second bowl is opened up for this game and tickets are still available if you’re interested in being a part of the action.

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