The Calgary Wranglers had a tough Friday night, falling 8-2 to the Bakersfield Condors. With a fresh opponent on Saturday, they hoped to make up for this loss. They faced off against the San Diego Gulls for their second game of the weekend, and while they scored first again, they couldn’t score beyond that opening marker. They fell for their third game in a row with a 3-1 final score.

Lineup notes

Prior to this game, the Wranglers announced a new roster update that included the addition of Carter Wilkie to the roster. Wilkie is a Calgary-born centre who played in the NCAA for the last four seasons. Most recently, at the University of North Dakota in 2024-25. He was added on an amateur tryout and did skate in this game wearing number 16. 
Still injured and unavailable for game action are David Silye, with a lower body injury and Tyson Barrie, who is recovering from whiplash.

Wranglers lines

Sam Honzek – Rory Kerins – Martin Frk
William Stromgren – Sam Morton – Parker Bell
Lucas Ciona – Clark Bishop – Ty Tullio 
Kyler Kupka – Carter Wilkie – Connor Mylymok 
Artem Grushnikov – Ilya Solovyov 
Yan Kuznetsov – Hunter Brzustewicz
Jeremie Poirier – Jonathan Aspirot
Waltteri Ignatjew 

Game at a glance

The Gulls went with the same netminder for this back to back weekend of hockey. Ville Husso was in net for their win over the Roadrunners on Friday and started in net for this game against the Wranglers. For Calgary, Waltteri Ignatjew got the start for the game to switch things up from Devin Cooley starting on the night before. 
The opening minutes of this game were played pretty cleanly. The Gulls got a pretty good look about six minutes in and Ignatjew managed to prevent this scoring chance from turning into anything but a chance. A bit of a scrum outside of the Gulls’ net resulted in some anger between Nico Myatovic and Sam Morton. They were dropping the gloves and ready to go but the officials prevented that and they took offsetting minors for unsportsmanlike conduct.
After these expired, the Wranglers were shorthanded due to a hooking call but managed to kill off most of this penalty. Prior to the end of this penalty kill, Carsen Twarynski was called for a high sticking double minor. Calgary used this extended power play to get on the board first with a goal from Jeremie Poirier. Hunter Brzustewicz set him up along the blue line and Ty Tullio picked up the secondary assist on this goal at 14:58. 
In the last 90 seconds of the opening period, Jeremie Poirier was called for a 10 minute misconduct that carried into the second period. At the end of 20 minutes, the Wranglers were up 1-0 but trailing 11-8 in shots.
The second period had a slower start and in the opening minutes, the Wranglers were the ones taking full advantage of their zone time. They looked for another goal but their momentum was cut short by a penalty against Ilya Solovyov for tripping at 7:58. The Gulls didn’t end up registering any shots on this power play.
At 12:50 San Diego scored their first goal of the game when Waltteri Ignatjew misplayed a puck behind the net and Justin Bailey jumped on the puck and set up Nico Myatovic for a shot on the empty net. 
The rest of the period finished off with no other penalties or changes in scoring and these teams were evened up 1-1 after 40 minutes of play. Shots in the middle frame were 10-3 for Calgary. In the third, shots were almost exactly opposite with a very San Diego favoured period of action. 
The Gulls had all but one of the shots in the first seven minutes of the third period and at 7:40, Stain Solberg went for the loose puck after the offensive zone faceoff and scored on a shot Igantjew was fully screened on. 
The Gulls continued to push and at 12:02, Parker Bell was called to the box for slashing. Just 52 seconds into this power play, the Gulls scored an insurance goal from Roland McKeown. McKeown threw the puck on net looking for a tip in or redirection and it ended up going the full distance. The home team took a 3-1 lead after this marker.
The Wranglers had a chance on the power play at 16:43 and opted to pull Ignatjew for the extra attacker at 17:35. Calgary managed to get one more shot off but lost 3-1 to San Diego. Shots finished 25-21 for San Diego. 

Scoring stat summary

Jeremie Poirier – 1G
Hunter Brzustewicz- 1A
Ty Tullio – 1A

Next up

Calgary continues their road trip for the early part of next week and heads to Tucson, AZ to face the Roadrunners. The eighth place Roadrunners would benefit most from a further fall in the standings from the Wranglers so this will be a significant series. Their next games will be a back to back on Apr. 1 and 2. Both games have a 7:30 p.m. MT puck drop.
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