The Calgary Wranglers hosted the Laval Rocket for their first meeting ever on Saturday. It was a french festival themed game that included custom ice sculptures in the concourse, a photo booth, maple taffy and a bi-lingual national anthem. The Rocket come into town as divisional leaders and an expected tough match up. Calgary held their own for the majority of the game. However, in the third, things got away from them and some untimely penalties and shorthanded goals prevented them from coming back. They fell 5-3 in their noon match-up on Saturday.

Lineup notes

The Wranglers are no longer carrying Martin Pospisil on their roster after he was called up to the Flames and played in a couple of NHL games this week. Dryden Hunt returned from the Flames and was back in the lineup for the game. Also returning was Etienne Morin, who missed last weekend’s games due to a family matter. Coming out of the lineup for this game was Jeremie Poirier.

Wranglers lines

Dryden Hunt – Sam Morton – Martin Frk

William Stromgren – Rory Kerins – Aydar Suniev

Carter King – Clark Bishop – Carter Wilkie

Lucas Ciona – David Silye – Alex Gallant

Artem Grushnikov – Daniil Miromanov

Nick Cicek – Zayne Parekh

Etienne Morin – Turner Ottenbreit

Arsenii Sergeev

Game at a glance

The Wranglers started Arsenii Sergeev for this game and in good news, Ivan Prosvetov was dressed and on the bench backing for the first time since he got injured. The Rocket started Jacob Fowler between the pipes. Just 37 seconds into the game, Laval struck first with a goal from Filip Mesar. Mesar picked up a neutral zone turnover and danced into the zone around Sergeev to score off a backhand shot.

Just under a minute later, the first penalty of the game was called against Etienne Morin for delay of game. Calgary killed off this penalty and managed to answer back with a goal from Dryden Hunt at 5:32. Martin Frk set him up and Hunt elevated a shot from the face-off dot to beat Fowler glove side.

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A look at Dryden Hunt's opening goal for the Wranglers this afternoon

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At 11:50, Tyler Thorpe and Martin Frk were called for offsetting roughing calls. Then the Wranglers drew a couple more penalties before the end of the period. At 19:17, Calgary gave up yet another shorthanded goal against when William Trudeau went for a shot that bounced back to him and he was able score off his own rebound. At the end of two complete periods, the Wranglers and Rocket were tied 3-3. Shots in the middle frame were 11-7 Calgary.

Early in the period, the Rocket took the lead back off a shot from Engstrom that was screened pretty heavily in front. Etienne Morin had lost his stick seconds earlier and it slid up towards the middle of the rink. Morin was left blocking with just his body in front of the net. This goal came at 1:54.

Laval added another at 4:12 when Jared Davidson scored on a one-timer to make it a 5-3 game. Shortly after this goal, Clark Bishop was called for boarding, then Martin Frk took the next penalty for tripping at 8:37. These calls made it difficult for Calgary to get something going in the first half of the period. Then at 10:43, the Rocket took a penalty at the trail end of Frk’s call and halfway into their power play, Zayne Parekh was called for tripping, which not only took away the power play chance but also one of the guys on the ice that they wanted to lead that power play.

The Wranglers pushed through the last few minutes of the game and pulled Arsenii Sergeev at 16:50 for the extra attacker. At 16:56, they took a timeout for the offensive zone draw and got lucky with the Rocket trying four or five chances at the empty net that were iced or went wide. The dying seconds wrapped up and the Wranglers fell 5-3.

Zayne Parekh was the only Wrangler on the three stars for this game picking up the third star for his two assist game. The shots finished 33-26 for Calgary.

Scoring stat summary

Dryden Hunt – 1G

Lucas Ciona – 1G

David Silye – 1A

Daniil Miromanov – 1A

Martin Frk – 1A

Aydar Suniev – 1G

Zayne Parekh – 2A

Flames conditioning watch

Zayne Parekh took a noticeable step forward in the second period of this game. The first was still a little shaky and he was missing passes and catching himself out of position at times. He was on the ice for a few of the goals against and finished with an even +/- rating and three shots on goal.

Parekh was getting his fair share of ice time and was frequently double shifted at parts of the game, especially when it was backing on to a power play. As he put it in his post-game media scrum, there’s a lot more to be positive about when the team wins and the points in this game aren’t his main focus. He felt he had chances that were better but those are the ones that went through.

Parekh said:

“I felt like I was moving the puck to my standard and finally hitting passes. I felt pretty good. Obviously it sucks we didn’t win but it’s a good step in the right direction.”

He continued:

“I think from the start, maybe I didn’t get a good feel of the time and space the last game but shift by shift I just tried to feel better and feel a little bit more comfortable. I feel obviously a little more confident. I felt good in the second and third. Maybe the first was a little slow but as long as I continue to get better, that’s the big thing.”

Highlights

Next up

The Wranglers have a day to fine tune a few things at practice on Monday and will be back for game two of this series on Monday night. Their next game goes at home at 7:00 p.m. MT.