The Calgary Wranglers play a two game road series this weekend before their trio of All-Stars make their way to the AHL All-Star game in Coachella Valley. Their next pair of games will be in Abbotsford where they face the Canucks on Friday and Saturday night.
Both lost their last games to Pacific Division opponents but the Canucks have been rolling the last stretch of games with a 8-2-0-0 record in their last 10 games.
Projected lines
Calgary
William Stromgren – Rory Kerins – Martin Frk
Sam Honzek – Sam Morton – David Silye
Jonathan Aspirot – Brett Davis – Lucas Ciona
Parker Bell – Trevor Janicke – Connor Mylymok
Ilya Solovyov – Artem Grushnikov
Yan Kuznetsov – Hunter Brzustewicz
Jarred Tinordi – Jeremie Poirier
Devin Cooley
Waltteri Ignatjew/Connor Murphy
Abbotsford
Sammy Blais – Ty Mueller – Danila Klimovich
Arshdeep Bains – Nils Aman – Nate Smith
Tristen Nielsen – John Stevens – Dino Kambeitz
Carsen Twarnyski – Chase Wouters – Cooper Walker
Erik Brannstrom – Jett Woo
Guillaume Brisebois – Cole McWard
Christian Wolanin – Kirill udryavtsev
Nikita Tolopilo
Arturs Silovs
Leaders
Calgary
Dryden Hunt – 39GP, 12G, 28A
William Stromgren – 42GP, 12G, 25A
Martin Frk – 39GP, 14G, 22A
Abbotsford
Nils Aman – 30GP, 7G, 19A
Aatu Raty – 23GP, 8G, 15A (Inactive on NHL call-up)
Ty Mueller – 37GP, 7G, 15A
Notes and expectations
The Wranglers have been away from game action since last Sunday but there has been quite a bit of inter-organizational movement between them and the Flames. Returning to the Wranglers roster is Rory Kerins. Kerins was the team and the league’s top scorer before being called up to the Flames earlier in the month. He played in five games and put up four points. He is one of the team’s All-Star representatives so being back with the team this weekend makes him eligible to still attend this event. It’s quite likely his stint with the Flames is not done for the season.
Moving up to the Flames to cover the vacant forward spot and cover an injured defender was Tyson Barrie and Adam Klapka. Barrie’s two game conditioning assignment with the Wranglers went over well and he was quarterbacking the power play for that squad right off the hop. In just one weekend, he had a goal and two assists.
For Klapka, his confidence is creeping up again. He had the privilege of starting the year on the Flames’ roster and was assigned to the Wranglers by the end of October. He has played eight games with the NHL parent club and has just one point after his goal on Thursday. For the Wranglers, he went down and got back to Adam Klapka things. Klapka led the team in regular season and post-season points last year and got his very long legs back after a few games. He goes to the Flames with 29 AHL games under his belt this season and 25 points.
With those three changes, there are some line shifts expected. Eyes will also be on Dryden Hunt to see if he returns this weekend. He missed the last series against the San Diego Gulls due to a day-to-day injury. If he returns this weekend, we could see that deadly top line of William Stromgren, Rory Kerins and Dryden Hunt once again.
It could be an interesting pair of games between these clubs with the season series at 3-1-0-0 for Calgary. However, every game they’ve played against each other this season has been decided by one goal with the exception of their last meeting on New Year’s Day. Calgary only lost in their season opener on October 11th but on paper, the Canucks have seemed to have been the hotter team as of late.
This series starts on Friday night and continues for a back-to-back on Saturday. Both games have an 8:00 p.m. MT puck drop and they will be streamed on AHL.tv on Flo Hockey for a fee. Multiple FlamesNation contributors will have updates on X (formerly Twitter).
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