The post-season bound Ontario Reign and postseason hopeful Calgary Wranglers face each other this weekend in the Wranglers’ barn. The Reign clinched a playoff berth on Wed., Apr. 2 after beating the San Jose Barracuda 3-2. Calgary also had a one goal win on Wednesday against the Tucson Roadrunners but will come into this series playing to stay alive in the playoff race.
Projected lines
Calgary
Rory Kerins – Sam Morton – Ty Tullio
Sam Honzek – Carter Wilkie – Martin Frk
William Stromgren – Clark Bishop – Parker Bell
Kaden Bohlsen – Lucas Ciona
Ilya Solovyov – Jonathan Aspirot
Yan Kuznetsov – Hunter Brzustewicz
Joni Jurmo – Jeremie Poirier
Artem Grushnikov
Devin Cooley
Waltteri Ignatjew
Ontario
Charles Hundon – Glenn Gawdin – Martin Chromiak
Andre Lee – Jack Studnicka – Samuel Fagemo
Aatu Jamsen – Francesco Pinelli – Taylor Ward
Shawn Element – Kaleb Lawrence – Jacob Doty
Joe Hicketts – Joseph Cecconi
Caleb Jones – Jack Millar
Jakub Dvorak – Reilly Walsh
Phoenix Copley
Jacob Ingham
Leaders
Calgary
Rory Kerins – 57GP, 31G, 25A
Martin Frk – 61P, 23G, 30A
Dryden Hunt – 48GP, 15G, 33A
Ontario
Charles Hudon – 61GP, 19G, 40A
Glenn Gawdin – 65GP, 24G, 33A
Jeff Malott – 61GP, 24G, 33A
Notes and expectations
Three of the seven Pacific Division teams have mathematically earned themselves postseason play. The Colorado Eagles, Ontario Reign and Abbotsford Canucks. These top teams have seven games remaining and are all eyeing the first round bye for clinching the division. Just because Ontario has clinched, doesn’t mean these games don’t still hold weight.
Calgary has six games remaining in the regular season and gets ⅓ of those games out of the way over two days this weekend. They sit in fifth place with the San Jose Barracuda, Tucson Roadrunners and Bakersfield Condors still in reach below them in the standings. If they started playoffs as things stood on Friday, they would be facing the Coachella Valley Firebirds in a best of three series.
Calgary is statistically out of the race to clinch the top spot in the Pacific Division or the league. They are tied with the San Jose Barracuda with a magic number of seven going into this weekend. They have faced the Reign six times already this season and have managed to at least pick up a point, but have not managed to string many wins together against them. Their season series record sits at 1-2-2-1.
The game earlier this week was a step in the right direction that will hopefully bring some confidence for the weekend. The Wranglers’ top line exploded in Tucson, with Rory Kerins scoring two and assisting on another, Sam Morton scoring two and Ty Tullio assisting on three out of four of his linemates goals. Their netminders have been allowing at least two to three goals as of late, so they’ll need to keep up the production to stay in these remaining games.
This series starts on Saturday with an earlier puck drop than usual at 1:30 p.m. MT and continues into Sunday for a 1:00 p.m. start. Tickets are still available if you’d like to catch the action live and streaming is available for a fee on AHL.tv on Flo Hockey. Sportsnet 960 The Fan will carry the radio broadcast and multiple FlamesNation contributors will have updates on X (formerly Twitter).
Sponsored by bet365:
