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Recap: Wranglers the victims of the Roadrunners revenge in 5-3 loss
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Photo credit: Kate Dibildox/Tucson Roadrunners
Paige Siewert
Nov 23, 2024, 10:00 ESTUpdated: Nov 23, 2024, 02:59 EST
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The Calgary Wranglers continued their road series this week with a trip to Tucson, Arizona to face the Roadrunners. This was just their first match-up of the season and the Roadrunners were the ones to get going in scoring first. The Roadrunners had a vendetta against the Wranglers after their season was ended by them in the first round of the playoffs in late April.
Calgary tried to keep up with Tucson but ultimately could not complete the comeback in this game and fell 5-3.

Lineup notes

The Wranglers went down a forward for this game and went back up to seven defenders. Slotting back into the lineup was Jonathan Aspirot, who picked up an assist in this game. The forward that was scratched was David Silye. 

Game at a glance

With three games this week, it was no surprise that Waltteri Ignatjew got the start in this game to break up the week for Devin Cooely. Matthew Villalta got the nod for Tucson between the pipes on the other end of the ice. 
The Roadrunners got on the board in the first minute of the game. Egor Sokolov and Josh Doan were in the Wranglers zone and Sokolov passed the puck up to Doan on Ignatjew’s glove side and scored before he could make the lateral movement back to that side of the net. They reviewed this goal, possibly for a potential offside but it didn’t overturn the call. The opening goal came just 50 seconds into this competition. 
Calgary struggled to get out of their own zone for a few minutes following this opening goal then had a penalty to kill off around the midway mark of the opening frame. The Roadrunners continued to push forward and got another goal at 14:55. A shot attempt on Villalta turned into a rush the other way and Austin Poganski fooled Ignatjew. He positioned himself like he was going for the one-timer but took a quick shot that beat the Wranglers netminder instead. Kailer Yamamoto got the lone helper on this marker.
The Wranglers didn’t let this first frame finish without a goal on their end and Clark Bishop netted one at 17:22 to split the Roadrunners lead. Bishop was right in front of the net and deflected Martin Frk’s shot to put their team within a goal. Jonathan Aspirot also assisted on this marker. 
That wrapped up the first period and the Wranglers went into the first intermission down 2-1 and trailing 6-9 in shots. Calgary got their first opportunity on the power play in the first half of the period and got burned on it for the third time this week. Ben McCartney was sprung on a breakaway and went forehand, backhand and in to score the third goal of the evening for Tucson. Kailer Yamamoto also assisted on this shorthanded goal that came at 7:09.
Just under two and a half minutes later, the Roadrunners struck again with an even strength goal from Sam Lipkin. Lipkin ripped a slap shot from the point that went bar down. Not too much to defend on that one. Robbie Russo and Aku Raty picked up the assists.
Just over two minutes after this goal, Lucas Ciona tried to light a fire in his teammates with a fight against Travis Barron at 11:44. It was a pretty innocent play that just ended with a whistle in the Wranglers zone but a flair in emotions started a tilt between these two. 
They served their major penalties and no other scoring ensued in the middle frame. By the second intermission, the Wranglers were down 4-1 and outshot 11-7 in the second period. In the third period, they had an early shift in momentum with a goal from Ilya Solovyov at 1:13. Yan Kuznetsov walked the line, passed the puck over to his d-partner and Solovyov finished it with a great shot. Sam Morton also assisted on the second Wranglers goal of the game. 
The Roadrunners answered back to this shortly after with a goal from Andrew Agozzino on the power play at 2:58. He jammed at a rebound and eventually got the puck over the line for their team’s fifth goal of the game. 
Emotions overflowed again with another fight in this game. This time between Jarred Tinordi and Curtis Douglas at 7:17. Tinordi was handcuffed and unable to land any punches. This fight was pretty much just a response to Tinordi taking down a Roadrunner skater along the boards a few seconds prior.
Calgary was able to get one more goal on the board when Clark Bishop scored his second goal of the night at 14:13. He was up on a rush with Jakob Pelletier and corralled the puck to score on a wrist shot. The play-by-play didn’t catch his jersey number so on the feed, it was announced as a goal from Dryden Hunt. It was definitely Bishop and Walker Duehr and Waltteri Ignatjew assisted. This was Ignatjew’s first point in the league. 
Calgary tried to close the gap in scoring even more by pulling Ignatjew at 15:39 then again at 18:25. The Wranglers were able to control the zone and get a few more shots on Villalta but could not add any more goals to their score. This game finished up with a 5-3 final score for Tucson and Calgary was outshot 25-22.

Scoring stat summary

Ilya Solovyov – 1G
Clark Bishop – 2G
Martin Frk – 1A
Walker Duehr – 1A
Yan Kuznetsov – 1A
Sam Morton – 1A
Jonathan Aspirot – 1A
Waltteri Ignatjew – 1A

Next up

The Wranglers have a quick turnaround after this loss and will play their rematch game against the Roadrunners on Saturday night. They’ll get going at the same time at 7:00 p.m. MT and hope to pick up a win to earn a split on the series.

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