Wranglers Bounce Back from Slow Start

If you watched the first month of Calgary Wranglers hockey and wondered what happened to the successful Stockton Heat, I have some good news for you.

In November, the Wranglers have completely turned things around and are playing at a level reminiscent of the team they were last year. After losing the first three games of the season, Calgary is up to an eight-game point streak and has made a full climb from the bottom of the AHL’s Pacific Division to second place. 

So, what has been working for them to get to this position? 

Top Scoring 

Some particular top players needed to be producing for the Wranglers to find success. The likes of Jakob Pelletier and Connor Zary needed to be more impactful to start the season with the amount of playing time they were getting. Instead, most of their success was being found on the power play and head coach Mitch Love could see right through that. In post-game interviews, he would share his disdain for special teams scoring and that the team needed to figure out how to score at even strength.

Now you would think a line of Pelletier, Zary and Matthew Phillips would be ideal for this team, but something about it didn’t click at the start of the season. A noticeable improvement took place when Zary was moved down to the Wranglers’ second line and Martin Pospisil (when he was healthy) and Radim Zahorna took his place. 

Phillips, Zary and Pelletier have all earned muti-game point streaks in the last stretch of games.

Matthew Phillips had eight games from October 21 to November 8 where he earned 12 points. He has continued tacking on the points as of late to share the league lead in goals (11).

Connor Zary is just off the back of a six-game scoring streak that was snapped in his most recent game against the Coachella Valley Firebirds. Between November 6 to November 19, Zary put up nine points.

Jakob Pelletier is on an impressive active point streak going into his second game of the week against the Coachella Valley Firebirds. Since November 6, he has earned 13 points and could keep it going through the next three games the Wranglers play this week.

Special Teams

Even when the goals were few and far between at the start of the season, the one thing that remained consistent was the power play. The Wranglers are third in the AHL in power play percentage (29.5%) under the Cleveland Monsters (32.1%) and Toronto Marlies (30.9%). Calgary leads the AHL in power play goals, with 23.

The Wranglers haven’t been as lights out on the other end of special teams, sitting closer to the middle of the pack in penalty kill percentage at 83.1%. This puts Calgary currently at 11th in the league.

From the looks of it, you don’t want to be the team on the other end of their main power-play units. 

Goaltending 

From last year’s performance, we knew Dustin Wolf was one heck of a goaltender. Unfortunately, Flames training camp and the early days of the Wranglers season didn’t show the spark you expected out of AHL Calgary’s go-to guy between the pipes. 

He’s another player who stepped it up and rose from some of his shaky starts early in the year. He has been playing three or four games to backup goaltender Oscar Dansk’s one game and currently leads the AHL in wins (9).

Wolf’s stats have levelled out, with his goals against average sitting at 2.45 and his save percentage up to .919 — more accurate to the standard he is known for with his successes in recent years. 

What Needs Improvement?

There has been lots of good for the Wranglers as of late, so I will try to keep this section brief. However, there are still parts of their game that aren’t perfect. Admittedly, Calgary’s defence has looked a bit better but still not up to a standard of a team that would like to make another Calder Cup push. Things need to tighten up at the blue line so the goaltenders aren’t hung out to try. 

To play devil’s advocate, it’s great things are going well right now, but what happens when that stops? This team is better conditioned for the full-time game schedule of the AHL now, and when they do lose again, they need to bounce back. Some of the newer players on this team need to figure out how to respond when adversity occurs, and it won’t do them any favours if said adversity is being dealt with at crucial times in the period. 

Can They Keep This Up?

In the short term? It appears they can. Long term? It remains to be seen. It’s a long season and things are still quite early. It is good they stopped the bleeding from the start, but AHL Calgary could be impaled by injuries and call-ups that completely change the game for them. Luckily enough, depth is on the Wranglers’ side, and Rapid City is a call away.