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Sam Morton and David Silye continue their collegiate connection into pro hockey with the Wranglers
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Photo credit: David Moll/Calgary Wranglers
Paige Siewert
Apr 28, 2026, 14:00 EDTUpdated: Apr 28, 2026, 11:49 EDT
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Two of the Calgary’s Wranglers’ centers share not only the same position but also a shared college experience in their path to pro hockey. These players are Sam Morton and David Silye. They played two seasons together at Minnesota State University (Mankato) in 2021-22 and 2022-23 and came to the Wranglers in the Spring of 2024 when their collegiate seasons wrapped up. Silye was on an ATO and Morton was on a PTO, as he’d already signed a one-year two-way contract. Now, two full seasons in the AHL later, you can see their shared position gives them plenty of extra time to work together and lean on each other for improvements to their game. 
Silye ended up playing in 58 games for the Wranglers this year, putting up 10 points. He was typically centring the fourth line and sometimes the odd man out depending on the availability in the depth chart and play of the other centremen. He played three more games this season than he did in the previous season. Morton played in nearly every Wranglers game this season with 38 points in 68 games and did get an early season call-up with the Flames for three games. Morton would usually centre the second line and did get some top line time when Rory Kerins was injured or when Morton was the hotter centre.
Morton and Silye frequently work together at practice on their face-offs and do their touches together prior to every game. Even though they typically fall on opposite sides of the line combinations, they still help each other fine tune their game. At Wranglers exit interviews this year, they both spoke about how working together in their pro careers has been beneficial to one another.
Morton said:
“We’re both centres. He’s a righty, I’m a lefty and as a centre usually as a lefty, you want to take draws against a lefty. It’s harder to go against a righty. So I think we talk about that kind of stuff a lot and I think it helps both of us. I think we’re pretty similar players as far as trying to be reliable 200 foot centres. So I think a lot of it’s just like working on the same things and talking about challenging aspects of that game or areas that we can both grow.”
In NCAA play, Sam Morton and David Silye had similar point production results based on Silye getting more opportunities towards the top of the lineup. Silye also outperformed Morton in the 2022-23 season, as Morton suffered a season ending knee injury in the first half of the season. Morton came back the next season stronger than ever with the best point production of his collegiate career, but Silye had transferred to the University of Wisconsin by then, so they did not play their senior year together.
Silye talked about working with Morton and said:
“He’s good. He’s such a good dude. He’ll shoot you straight too right? Like he pushes and I remember in college he was first line centre and I was second line centre. We would always battle each other and push each other to be better and that’s what made our friendship so great. Is we battle each other and he’s a good example. He comes to work every day. He’s a good guy to look up to and one of my best buddies.”
Despite Silye being further down the depth chart for the Wranglers, Morton still gets trusted feedback and pointers from his former college teammate. Silye said:
“I think I got the edge on face-offs on him so I bug him a little bit but no it’s good. We chat a lot about the game and it’s good to have a sounding board that you can bounce stuff off of that doesn’t take it too seriously.”
Morton confirmed in his exit interview that he’s pretty sure Silye has the edge in face-off percentage too. The AHL doesn’t track that in their published statistics, so we’ll just have to take their word for it. Another shared experience these two have coming up is their weddings this summer. So they’ll have a chance to reunite in the off-season and hopefully know by then if they will play another season together, as they’re both on contracts that expired at the end of the season.

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