The Calgary Wranglers were fresh off a 3-2 overtime win over the Colorado Eagles and right back in action on Friday to host the Tucson Roadrunners. Calgary got on the board first but two power play goals from the visiting Utah Mammoth affiliate within a minute had them playing from behind for most of the game. The Wranglers managed to get one goal back in the third period but fell to the Roadrunners 5-2.

Lineup notes

The Wranglers rolled with their same lineup as Thursday for this game. There was an organizational change earlier in the day, however. The team announced that Andrew Basha was assigned to the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers.

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Andrew Basha played in 27 games with the Wranglers this season and put up a goal and four assists in that time. This move should be a good confidence builder for him and get him some more top minutes as he’s been a rotating third or fourth liner with Calgary.

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

After picking up the overtime win on Thursday, the Wranglers went right back to Owen Say fot this game. For the Roadrunners, they started Matthew Villalta in net. Just 1:07 into the game, Scott Perunovich high-sticked Parker Bell and was called for a minor penalty. Early in this power play, the Wranglers gave up a shorthanded breakaway and Sam Morton made a great defensive play to shut it down and broke the Roadrunners skater’s stick on the play.

The Wranglers weren’t able to register any shots on the power play and play continued. The Wranglers were facing three guys formerly in the organization for this game including Kevin Rooney, Ty Tullio and Juuso Valimaki. Both Rooney and Tulio had some early looks on Say and he managed to keep the puck out.

At 7:49, the Wranglers opened the scoring with a big goal from Rory Kerins. William Stromgren helped keep the puck in the zone after an offensive zone face-off loss then passed it to Dryden Hunt, who got the puck to Rory Kerins for a back door marker. This goal tied Kerins for the longest point streak in team history with 11 games. This record is also held by Jakob Pelletier and Matthew Phillips.

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Just past the midway mark of the period, David Silye was hit over by the Roadrunners bench and knocked to the ice on his back. Alex Gallant was right there to stand up for him and this play didn’t result in any calls going either way. With 3:15 to go in the period, William Stromgren was called for holding. Just 42 seconds into this penalty kill, Clark Bishop had some scrappy stuff going on in the Wranglers zone and was called for cross-checking. The Wranglers managed two shifts of penalty killers then the Roadrunners rang a shot off the post and the next shot on Say ended up in the back of the net. The goal was scored by Austin Poganski.

Stromgren came out of the box and before Bishop’s penalty could expire, the Roadrunners added another to take their first lead of the game. Cameron Hebig tapped in a puck on the doorstep and gave Tucson a 2-1 lead. At 19:46, the Roadrunners were called for a faceoff violation and Miko Matikka served the delay of game call. The Wranglers got a few seconds of power play time before it carried into the second. At the end of the first period, the Wranglers were down 2-1 and were outshot 15-9 through 20 minutes.

They started the second period with 1:47 of power play time. In the last second of the power play, Parker Bell was called for slashing and the Wranglers were back penalty killing. They killed off Bell’s call and continued on in the second. The fatigue of the week seemed to show itself in the middle frame of this game and the Wranglers were only able to put up a handful of shots. The whistles were minimal until 16:35 when Turner Ottenbreit was called for high-sticking. Owen Say stopped a big slap shot on this power play and another shot rang off the post again.

In the last 15 seconds of the period, Former Flame Juuso Valimaki scored his first goal in over a year to make it a 3-1 game for Tucson. Valimaki got the puck shortly after the offensive zone faceoff and shot it past Say’s glove side. This wrapped up the second period and the Wranglers were trailing 3-1 after 40 minutes of play. The Wranglers were outshot 19-4 in the middle frame.

Early in the third, Sam Morton was called for interference. This call came just 18 seconds into the frame. Calgary didn’t need to penalty kill for long as Ben McCartney was called for holding the stick 22 seconds later. During this four on four, Jeremie Poirier took a shot that caught William Stromgren in the back of the leg and he went back to the bench slowly in pain. Poirier was then called for hooking at 2:03, and the Wranglers were back penalty killing. Stromgren didn’t leave the bench and was out on the ice for his next shift. All the penalties were killed off and the score stood at 3-1 by the five minute mark of the period.

At the eight minute mark of the period, Owen Say went down a little too early for a save and left a corner of the net open for Miko Matikka to score on. The Roadrunners pulled ahead 4-1. A couple of minutes later, the Roadrunners nearly had another with a shot that went off the post and out. The Wranglers managed to get a goal back at 15:49, when the third line battled in the zone and Etienne Morin took a shot from the point that Lucas Ciona deflected in. Originally, they thought Clark Bishop may have scored but it ended up going to Ciona. Clark Bishop was originally credited with one of the assists but it ended up going to Etienne Morin and Parker Bell on the finalized game sheet.

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Right after this goal, Rory Kerins was taken down in the corner behind the Roadrunners net. He was going for the puck and Artem Duda turned around quickly and high-sticked Kerins. This ended up being a double minor and Kerins went to the bench in some pain. Thankfully he was able to return for his next shift on the power play. Just over a minute into this Wranglers’ power play, the Roadrunners got out to a shorthanded breakaway and Ben McCartney took a shot on Say that deflected off his chest and into the back of the net. The goal came at 17:25 and put the Roadrunners up 5-2.

That pretty well wrapped up this game and the Wranglers fell to the Roadrunners 5-2. Shots finished 43-20 for Tucson. It’s been a pretty condensed schedule for the Wranglers as they are tied for total games played in the AHL. Captain Clark Bishop spoke on this post-game and said:

“We’ve had a really busy schedule here in the first half so get some rest when we can. We got a little more of a less dense schedule here coming up in January, so hopefully we can string a couple wins together with that lower schedule.”

Scoring stat summary

Rory Kerins – 1G

William Stromgren – 1A

Dryden Hunt – 1A

Lucas Ciona – 1G

Etienne Morin – 1A

Parker Bell – 1A

Highlights

Next up

The Wranglers have a day between games to rest and recover for the most part. Their next game will be on Sunday to close off the weekend series against the Roadrunners. Game time goes at 1:00 p.m. MT.