Friday afternoon represented the American Hockey League’s trading and roster deadline, folks, and the Calgary Wranglers have added a new player. Prior to the 1 p.m. MT deadline, the Buffalo Sabres re-assigned forward Ty Tullio from their own affiliate, the Rochester Americans, to the Wranglers on a loan.

Tullio is a 22-year-old right shot forward originally from Windsor, Ontario. He came up through the Ontario Hockey League with the Oshawa Generals and was a fifth-round pick, 126th overall, by the Edmonton Oilers in the 2020 NHL Draft. In his final OHL season, 2021-22, he had 42 goals and 86 points over 65 games with the Generals. He’s a smart player that got progressively more productive during his run in junior hockey. (He also spent the OHL’s 2020-21 COVID shutdown playing pro hockey in Slovakia.)

Tullio’s pro career has been a mixed bag, though. He spent two seasons in the Oilers’ system, playing with their AHL farm club, the Bakersfield Condors. He had 13 goals and 26 points in 2022-23, and nine goals and 21 points in 2023-24. He was sent to the Sabres in the trade that sent Matt Savoie to Edmonton, and he had nine points over 30 games with Rochester. (Disclaimer: he’s scoring on just 3.4% of his shots with Rochester, compared to 12.1% over two seasons in Bakersfield.)

Simply put, Tullio is a player that probably wasn’t going to be playing high in the rotation in Rochester and doesn’t seem to fit into Buffalo’s long-term plans. Meanwhile, the Wranglers have been missing some key players because of call-ups, trades and injuries. A depleted forward group has been leaning heavily on players on AHL deals (Alex Gallant, David Silye and Connor Mylymok) and players called up on PTOs from the ECHL (Kyler Kupka and Brett Davis) recently.

Giving Tullio an opportunity to see if there’s a fit within a lean Wranglers forward group seems like a win-win move for everybody involved. And you never know, in a Pacific Division playoff race for the Wranglers that looks to be pretty competitive down the stretch, perhaps Tullio’s shooting percentage can rebound and he can score some important goals for them before all is said and done.

The Wranglers return to action this weekend when they visit the Abbotsford Canucks.