The Calgary Wranglers and Henderson Silver Knights kicked off their third two-game series of the season on Friday with a home game at the Scotiabank Saddledome. Calgary was coming off a three game losing streak on their last road trip and needed a comeback game to snap back into their style of play.
They did generate some extra offence and energy in front of their home crowd and snapped their losing streak with a 5-3 win.

Lineup notes

There were just a couple of changes in this game. Clark Bishop was back after being scratched for their game against the Ontario Reign on Wednesday. His return didn’t kick Sam Honzek out of centring his line either. Instead, these two split up and Bishop played on Sam Morton and Lucas Ciona’s line. Because of Bishop’s return, Trevor Janicke was the scratched skater for this game.

Wranglers lines

William Stromgren – Rory Kerins – Dryden Hunt
Adam Klapka – Sam Honzek – Martin Frk
Clark Bishop – Sam Morton – Lucas Ciona
Parker Bell – David Silye – Alex Gallant
Yan Kuznetov – Hunter Brzustewicz
Jonathan Aspirot – Ilya Solovyov 
Artem Grushnikov – Jeremie Poirier
Devin Cooley
Waltteri Ignatjew (Backup)

Game at a glance

The goaltending match-up for this game consisted of Devin Cooley for Calgary and Akira Schmid for Henderson. Schmid would get the majority of the early action as the Wranglers dominated the offensive zone time in the opening minutes.
This was only broken up by an offsetting minor dealt to Sam Honzek and Dysin Mayo at 8:04. Mayo had Honzek pinned against the boards and the on-ice officials opted to send them both over to the box. Only 20 seconds into this four-on-four, Dryden Hunt was also tagged for holding and put the Wranglers at a one-man disadvantage.
After these penalties wound down, Adam Klapka came up on the rush and ripped a wrist shot far post on Schmid. Hunter Brzustewicz fed him the setup pass and Jonathan Aspirot picked up the secondary assist. This goal was recorded at 11:55.
The Wranglers had a couple of penalties to deal with after this goal but kept their lead by the end of the period. They were still on the penalty kill at the end of 20 minutes but remained up 1-0. Shots through the first were 9-6 Calgary. 
In the second period, the Wranglers had the majority of a William Stromgren penalty left to kill and were unable to prevent a change in the score. Raphael Lavoie ripped a one-timer past Cooley on the power play and painted the top corner for the equalizing goal. This marker came at 1:25 and was assisted by Braeden Bowman and Jake Bischoff. 
The Wranglers got a power play but after that, they were right back to penalty killing when Clark Bishop was called for goaltender interference in a big collision in front of Henderson’s net. Lavoie struck again on this power play and gave the Silver Knights their first lead at 6:59. Raphael Lavoie’s second marker of the night was assisted by Jake Bischoff again and former Wrangler, Mitch McLain. Cooley couldn’t get a glove on the rebound and was being doggy piled on. When the puck popped out, Lavoie ripped another shot into a mostly unguarded net. This was a contested play that riled up the bench and their netminder but the goal remained.
The Wranglers didn’t let that lead last long and one of their most clutch players of the year, Rory Kerins, evened things up for the home team at 8:54. Kerins was sitting on Schmid’s blocker side and tapped in the puck back door. Jeremie Poirier and William Stromgren earned the helpers on this tying goal.
Later in the period, the Wranglers were on the power play and got another marker on the board in the second. At 15:12, William Stromgren scored the third Calgary goal of the night with a bar down blast. Dryden Hunt and Jeremie Poirier assisted on this go-ahead goal.
Less than a minute later, the Wranglers got another goal. This time from Adam Klapka for his second marker of the night. Martin Frk and Ilya Solovyov helped get possession of the puck back in the neutral zone and sprung Klapka on a partial breakaway he scored on at 16:04.
That wrapped up the five goals between these teams in the second period and the middle frame finished with a 4-2 lead for the home team. Henderson had the edge in shots this period 13-11. In the third, the game was kept close and penalties slowed down. 
It wasn’t until the last five minutes of regulation that the score would change. Henderson pulled Schmid for the extra attacker at 15:43 and less than a minute later, they scored. Braeden Bowman put his team within a goal at 16:17 when he buried a rebound on Cooley. 
They kept Schmid off to try and do it again and at least try to get to overtime but Clark Bishop took away some of that hope with an empty netter at 18:48. That ended up being the last shot of the game and the Wranglers were back in the win column with a 5-3 victory. 
The Wranglers had two players in the three stars with Jeremie Poirier earning the first and Adam Klapka earning the second. Shots in this game finished an even 30-30.

Scoring stat summary

Jeremie Poirier – 2A
Hunter Brzustewicz – 1A
Rory Kerins – 1G, 1A
Dryden Hunt – 1A
Clark Bishop – 1G
Martin Frk – 1A
Adam Klapka – 2G
Jonathan Aspirot – 1A

Highlights

Next up

The Wranglers play their last game before Christmas on Sunday. This will be their first annual Winter Wranglerfest game which will be full of a bunch of festive action, including custom jerseys. It’ll be the same match-up later this weekend with a puck drop of 1:00 p.m. MT.