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Wranglers recap: Shorthanded scoring not enough to ground the Eagles on Friday
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Photo credit: David Moll/Calgary Wranglers
Paige Siewert
Jan 11, 2025, 10:15 ESTUpdated: Jan 11, 2025, 10:14 EST
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The Calgary Wranglers met the Colorado Eagles on Friday night for their second series of the season. Their last meeting was at the beginning of the season so it was interesting to see these teams duke it out in mid-season form. Calgary got off to a good start but lost control of the game.
Instead, the Eagles chipped away at a lead they earned in the first and ended up beating the Flames affiliate 5-2.

Lineup notes

Rory Kerins was officially called up to the Calgary Flames on Friday morning so he did not join the team for this trip. Instead, he joined the NHL club for their practice. This caused a bit of line shuffling, but with Jarred Tinordi returning from injury, it also provided more options on the blue line. Calgary went with 11 forwards and 7 defencemen in this game to cover some of the gaps.

Wranglers lines

Dryden Hunt – Clark Bishop – Martin Frk
William Stromgren – Sam Morton – Adam Klapka
Sam Honzek – Lucas Ciona
Alex Gallant – David Silye – Parker Bell
Yan Kuznetsov – Ilya Solovyov
Jarred Tinordi – Jonathan Aspirot 
Artem Grushnikov – Jeremie Poirier
Hunter Brzustewicz 
Devin Cooley

Game at a glance

Calgary started newly named AHL All-Star, Devin Cooley for this game and the opposing goaltender was Adam Scheel for Colorado. Both got some early action on net to start the game and by just 3:12, the Wranglers were on the penalty kill as Ilya Solovyov was called for tripping. 
The Eagles were trying to set something up and when the clearing attempt banked off the boards, Dryden Hunt skated it up into Colorado’s zone and made an evasive move to split the defencemen and score on Adam Scheel. This shorthanded goal came at 3:49 and was assisted by Jarred Tinordi.
It didn’t take long for the Eagles to answer back when former Wrangler, Matthew Phillips took a shot that went top corner and past Cooley. His goal came at 5:09 and was assisted by Calle Rosen and Oskar Olausson. This goal was still a power play marker from Solovyov’s time in the box. 
The Eagles held on to this early boost of momentum and scored the next goal to take their first lead of the game. At 8:12, Mark Senden got the puck in the net through traffic in front. Cooley didn’t seem to get a good look at this one and was beat on the shot.
The second half of the opening period gave Cagary a couple of opportunities on the power play but nothing to change the score. They finished the first period down 2-1 and outshot Colorado 8-7 through the frame.
In the second period, the Eagles struck quickly to put a two goal gap between their visiting opponents. Jayson Megna scored the third goal of the night for the Eagles at 2:42. Cooley had some frustrations with this goal as one of the other Eagles players was behind him in the crease by the time this goal was scored. However, it still remained and the Eagles were up 3-1.
The next goal was also from the Eagles just under three minutes later off a marker from Jason Polin. Chase Bradley put the puck on the net and when Cooley directed the save straight out, Polin was right there on the doorstep to drive it home. This fourth Eagles goal came at 5:20.
There was a penalty stoppage for each side minutes later after these goals but the scoring took a pause for the rest of the period. By the end of 40 minutes of play, the Wranglers trailed the Eagles 4-1.
In the third period, the coaching staff made a change in net and pulled Cooley out of the game and put Waltteri Ignajtew in to switch things up. This is the first start Devin Cooley had this season where he did not finish the game.
His team had another moment to seize on the penalty kill when Captain, Clark Bishop took matters into his own hands on a breakaway and scored early into the period. His goal was unassisted and came just 40 seconds into the frame. 
Later in the period, Calgary was penalty killing again and a puck made its way past Waltteri Ignatjew. However, he appeared to be interfered with and once it was reviewed, the goal was called back. An Eagles player was parked in the crease and ran into Ignatjew when he tried to move laterally to make the save. This overturned goal kept the game at 4-2 for the Eagles.
A few minutes later, Matthew Phillips was interfered with by Artem Grushnikov on a scoring chance and took a penalty shot on Ignatjew. Phillips lost possession of the puck when he was stickhandling on this attempt and Ignatjew didn’t even need to make a save on this one to prevent a further spread in scoring. 
With just under three minutes to go in regulation, Calgary pulled Ignatjew for the extra attacker and by 18:20, the home team put the puck in the empty net. The final buzzer rang shortly after and the Wranglers fell 5-2. The shots finished 27-23 for Calgary.

Scoring stat summary

Dryden Hunt – 1G
Jarred Tinordi – 1A
Clark Bishop – 1G

Next up

This game was the first of a back to back between these two. They’ll play their next game on Saturday night at 7:05 p.m. MT, where the Wranglers will try to go for the split.

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