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Wranglers Recap: Sam Morton and Hunter Brzustewicz both score two in 4-3 win over the Firebirds
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Photo credit: David Moll/Calgary Wranglers
Paige Siewert
Oct 26, 2025, 12:00 EDTUpdated: Oct 26, 2025, 02:30 EDT
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The Calgary Wranglers looked to play a more complete game on Saturday after narrowly falling to the Firebirds in their home opener when they took their foot off the gas. Saturday’s game didn’t have quite the same energy as the night before, but they managed to pick up a win in regulation and beat the Seattle Kraken affiliate 4-3.

Lineup notes

Just a few changes took place in this game after their overtime loss on Friday. Parker Bell slotted back into the lineup and with Dryden Hunt getting re-assigned to the Wranglers earlier in the day, he was also available for this game. Coming out of the lineup were Lucas Ciona and Alex Gallant. Calgary swapped things around in net for this game and went back to Ivan Prosvetov in net. 

Wranglers lines

William Stromgren – Rory Kerins – Matvei Gridin 
Dryden Hunt – Sam Morton – Martin Frk
Aydar Suniev – Clark Bishop – Andrew Basha
Parker Bell – Carter King – David Silye
Nick Cicek – Hunter Brzustewicz
Yan Kuznetsov – Jeremie Poirier 
Artem Grushnikov – Daniil Miromanov 
Ivan Prosvetov

Game at a glance

Ivan Prosvetov took his respective spot between the pipes. Then the Firebirds opted to continue with Victor Ostman, who played over 40 minutes in relief in Friday’s game. It was a pretty even start and early in the first, Sam Morton netted his first goal of the season with a well placed top corner shot set up by Dryden Hunt. Martin Frk picked up the secondary assist.
About five minutes later, the first penalty of the game was called against the Wranglers when William Stromgren was tagged for hooking. After this penalty was killed off, Calgary had a good push for the rest of the period and Martin Frk had one of the best looks on the doorstep in the last couple of minutes of the frame. 
Right at the 20 minute mark, Jeremie Poirier was called for tripping, so his penalty would carry into the second period. Headed into the first intermission, the Wranglers led the Firebirds 1-0 and had an 11-7 edge in shots. 
The Wranglers started this period off as well with another goal in the first five minutes. Dryden Hunt helped set up another goal when he crashed the zone and caught Hunter Brzustewicz on his own. Hunt threw the pass up to his defender to take the shot past Ostman. Sam Morton also assisted on this marker for his second point of the night. 
The Firebirds got on the board about two and a half minutes later when the Wranglers were behind on the rush, and Carson Rehkopf scored on Prosvetov back door. This goal came exactly seven minutes into the frame. 
It took some review as there was an earlier shot that may have crossed the line when Artem Grushnikov accidentally deflected the puck when it was popped up around the net. The review looked as if Grushnikov’s play put the puck past the line but after review, they kept Rehkopf’s goal as the official marker and continued play. 
After the midway mark, there was a bit of a scrambled play when Ivan Prosvetov was without his stick. Hunter Brzustewicz stepped up with a block in front that likely saved a goal. After a few stressful seconds, they managed to clear the zone without any damage to the scoreboard. 
There were a couple more chances before the end of the period but the score remained 2-1 at the end of 40 minutes. Coachella Valley took a lead in shots in the middle frame, outshooting Calgary 13-7 in the second.
The Wranglers didn’t get the early goal in the third and instead, the Firebirds tied things up just 2:04 in. Lukas Dragicevic took a shot that cleanly beat Prosvetov five hole. The Wranglers wanted to prevent the mistakes of the night before and Brett Sutter did some line shuffling to try and get his team back ahead in this competition after a few minutes of play in the third.
By the nine minute mark, the lead was the Wranglers once again with another goal from Sam Morton right in the slot. The passing play gave points to Matvei Gridin and Daniil Miromanov for their assists.
Less than a minute later, the Firebirds were called for a too many men bench minor and while the Wranglers had a few shots on this power play, they weren’t able to add some insurance to their lead. 
At 14:17, Jeremie Poirier and David Goyette had some words for each other and got into a little altercation. This resulted in offsetting roughing minors against the two. At 18:28, Coachella Valley pulled Ostman for the empty attacker and Hunter Brzustewicz went for the empty netter at 19:03 for his second goal of the night as well. Brzustewicz’s goal was assisted by Matvei Gridin and Clark Bishop.
Ostman came back out for the faceoff and another roughing call was dealt to the Wranglers. This time to Dryden Hunt. Victor Ostman went back to the bench after this call and with eight seconds left in regulation, the Firebirds added another. Oscar Fisker Molgaard scored the final goal of the game.
The last eight seconds elapsed and the Wranglers picked up their first regulation win of the season and earned the split on the series. The final score was 4-3 and shots were 27-26 for Coachella Valley. 
After the game, Hunter Brzustewicz spoke to the media and reflected on his game and how the team has been doing, saying:
“Tonight I felt a lot better. I think that might be my first multi-goal game since like 14 years old. It felt good.”
Brzustewicz continued:
“We’ve played one good game, one bad game each weekend. We’ve just got to find that consistent basis. We shoot ourselves in the foot oftentimes, just not getting the pucks in. It’s simple. Simple game. Sounds cliche, but that’s what it takes.”

Scoring stat summary

Dryden Hunt – 2A
Matvei Gridin – 2A
Clark Bishop – 1A
Daniil Miromanov – 1A
Martin Frk – 1A
Sam Morton – 2G, 1A
Hunter Brzustewicz – 2G

Highlights

Next up

The Wranglers’ homestand was brief as they head on the road to play the Abbotsford Canucks for their first mid-week series of the season. They play this upcoming Tuesday and Wednesday, with both games getting started at 8:00 p.m. MT.

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