The Calgary Wranglers were looking for some home ice magic on Tuesday night to switch up the results they had in their last three games. They went into this game on a three game losing streak which matched their high for the season. After a stunning start, they put themselves in a great position to control the game.
They snapped their losing streak with a 5-2 win over the Tucson Roadrunners to open up this mid-week series.

Lineup notes

There was still no sign of Devin Cooley for this game so Connor Murphy got the start in his second game with the Wranglers this season and Waltteri Ignatjew backed him up. The home team just made a couple of little changes to the lineup. They went back to 12 forwards and six defencemen as they carried an extra blue liner last game. Artem Grushnikov was out for this game and Trevor Janicke slotted in on the fourth line for his fifth game with Calgary.

Wranglers lines

William Stromgren – Sam Morton – Dryden Hunt
Sam Honzek – Clark Bishop – Martin Frk
Lucas Ciona – David Silye – Adam Klapka
Alex Gallant – Trevor Janicke – Parker Bell
Yan Kuznetsov – Hunter Brzustewicz
Jonathan Aspirot – Ilya Solovyov
Jarred Tinordi – Jeremie Poirier
Connor Murphy

Game at a glance

Murphy’s opposing netminder in this game was Matthew Villalta for the Utah Hockey Club’s affiliate. Villalta had to be ready to go early in this game when the Roadrunners were tagged with a hooking penalty just 50 seconds into the game. The Wranglers ended up scoring off their first shot of the game when Sam Honzek ripped a one-timer at 2:27 for the power play goal.
The assists on this opening marker went to Sam Morton and Jonathan Aspirot. Tucson didn’t get much relief after this goal but did get some of their first shots on the board. The Wranglers got a lucky bounce at the 8:37 mark and made it a 2-0 game off some friendly fire between Roadrunners. Dryden Hunt threw the puck on the net on a wraparound then it was deflected in by Aku Raty. Hunt was officially credited for the goal and William Stromgren and Sam Morton assisted. 
This early lead ignited quite a bit of energy out of Calgary and they kept pushing in this first period. They ended up with another puck in the back of the net at 15:33 when Sam Morton deflected Dryden Hunt’s shot from the point and in. Jonathan Aspirot also assisted on this marker for his second assist of the period. 
Late in the period, the Wranglers were on the power play again and appeared to score just shy of the 18:30 mark. Jonathan Aspirot was the skater to score and would’ve been up to three points in the opening 20 minutes but once it was reviewed, it was called back for goaltender interference. Clark Bishop was in front of the net for the screen and made contact with Villalta’s glove just before the shot was past the line. 
Instead of four goals, Calgary finished the first with a healthy 3-0 lead and a 13-7 edge in shots. In the second period, the scoring slowed down as the Wranglers settled in. They had a pretty even period in zone time and just had one penalty to kill off at 13:53.
As time wound down in the second frame, the Wranglers found another goal at 18:48 from Adam Klapka, who was surely due for one. He did a little forward backhand move on the breakaway and put it in the back of the net. His goal was assisted by Lucas Ciona and Clark Bishop.
The second period finished up with a 4-0 lead for the Flames affiliate but were outshot 14-13 in that frame. Tucson’s demeanour changed in the third period and they came out of the locker room on a mission. They had all the shots through the first eight and a half minutes and got on the board because of it. 
The first goal for the visitors came at 8:32 when Cameron Hebig scored off a rebound that popped out after the one-timer attempt. Assists went to Maveric Lamoureaux and Kailer Yamamoto on this marker and the score was 4-1 at this point in the game. 
The Wranglers got a bit of momentum going the other way to try and prevent further damage to the other side of the scoreboard, but that only went so far. Tucson ended up striking again at 13:23 with a goal from Sam Lipkin. This was another rebound that Lipkin ripped bar down. Curtis Douglas and Aku Raty assisted.
The Roadrunners opted to pull their netminder at 16:21 and within nine seconds, William Stromgren scored into the empty net. Captain Clark Bishop assisted on this goal as well for his second assist in his 400th AHL game.
Villalta came back out for the rest of the game and Tuscon pretty well accepted their fate at this point. Before this game came to a close, some emotions erupted in front of the visiting bench and when the dust settled, Adam Klapka was tagged for a fighting major and a roughing minor and Lucas Ciona was dealt a 10 minute misconduct. On the other end, Ben McCartney was called for a fighting major and Kevin Connauton was dealt a 10 minute misconduct as well. 
The Roadrunners got a couple more shots on goal before regulation ran out and the Wranglers picked up a 5-2 win. The shots finished 34-32 favouring Tucson and the three stars of the game went to Clark Bishop for the third, Dryden Hunt for the second and Sam Morton for the first.

Scoring stat summary

William Stromgren – 1G, 1A
Dryden Hunt – 1G, 1A
Lucas Ciona – 1A
Clark Bishop – 2A
Sam Honzek – 1G
Adam Klapka – 1G
Sam Morton – 1G, 2A
Jonathan Aspirot – 2A

Highlights

Next up

Calgary gets to do it all again on Wednesday night with the second part of their back-to-back series. If they do what they did in this game, they’ll set themselves up for another successful game in front of their home crowd. Wednesday’s match up gets going at 7:00 p.m. MT.