It’s official! The Calgary Wranglers have announced their season-opening lineup. The team will start with 15 forwards, eight defencemen, and two netminders. Here’s how they will start:
How should the Calgary Wranglers line up?
Just like the Calgary Flames, the Wranglers have a lot of wingers and not a lot of centres. The top line will almost certainly be centred by Sam Morton, who is the best centre on the team. Then the team will probably have Justin Kirkland and Clark Bishop centring their second and third lines, leaving Jaden Lipinski the most likely option as the fourth centre.
The wingers are a bit of a mix to try to figure out, but I would imagine they start like this:
| Left Wing | Centre | Right Wing |
|---|---|---|
| William Stromgren | Sam Morton | Martin Frk |
| Jakob Pelletier | Clark Bishop | Walker Duehr |
| Alex Gallant | Justin Kirkland | Dryden Hunt |
| Rory Kerins | Jaden Lipinski | Lucas Ciona |
This would leave David Silye, Parker Bell, and Ilya Nikolayev as your extra forwards.
The top three lines are moveable, but I would imagine that aside from Alex Gallant, that’s probably your top nine. The bottom line is a bit of a mishmash. Lipinski is your only true centreman and will probably start in that role unless he looks really bad. The team can technically return him to junior hockey if need be, and depending on performance, that may be a route they explore.
Lucas Ciona and Bell probably rotate in and out of the lineup alongside Silye. Nikolayev is an interesting one, as he has split time between the AHL and ECHL for the last two seasons. He will really need to show he deserves a look ahead of all of these players.
Perhaps most interesting of all is what happens with Rory Kerins. One of the top scorers in the OHL a couple years back, he simply has not earned the trust of his coaches and has struggled to get minutes.
On the blue line, the Wranglers have eight quality defencemen, all of whom will be fighting for minutes. Interestingly, the team only has one right-shot blueliner in Hunter Brzustewicz. The pairings are a little harder to estimate at this point, but of the eight, I would bet the Wranglers sit Joni Jurmo and Yan Kuznetsov to start the year.
I would lineup as follows:
| Left Defence | Right Defence |
|---|---|
| Jarred Tinordi | Jeremie Poirier |
| Ilya Solovyov | Hunter Brzustewicz |
| Artem Grushnikov | Jonathan Aspirot |
In net, the Wranglers probably play Devin Cooley as their starter until and unless Waltteri Ignatjew steals the crease from him. The Finnish netminder was very good for the Flames in Penticton at the Young Stars Classic and could prove to be a capable backstop.
When do the Calgary Wranglers start?
The Wranglers open their season tonight at home against the Abbotsford Canucks at 7:00pm at the Scotiabank Saddledome. They then play the Canucks at home on Sunday at 1:00pm before heading out on the road to visit Coachella Valley, Henderson, and then clash against the Bakersfield Condors, the Edmonton Oilers’ farm team.
The Wranglers have been outstanding the last couple years, and each time they lose talent either from call-ups or players moving on, they have somehow not lost that mojo. It should be another big year for the Flames’ farm team.
