Recap: One of Dryden Hunt’s best games of the year leads Wranglers to home victory

The Roadrunners didn’t roll over after this goal but their efforts would fall short when it came to trying to find an equalizer. A couple of penalties hit the board around the midway mark of the period, but it was the Wranglers who scored the next goal in the opening frame. Jonathan Aspirot went for a top corner snipe and scored at 16:33. Rory Kerins and Dryden Hunt picked up the helpers on the second goal of the night. 

By the end of the first period, the Wranglers had a 2-0 advantage on the scoreboard and a 14-11 edge in shots. Early in the second period, Alex Gallant dropped the gloves for his first big tilt of the season. His opponent was Curtis Douglas. It was a pretty even fight and brought some excitement into the start of the second frame.

These skaters served their majors but the Wranglers ended up shorthanded when Jonathan Aspirot was called for tripping just under a minute later. These penalties were killed along with the couple others that came over the course of the period. There was no scoring in the middle frame so Calgary held their 2-0 lead and put up seven shots to Tucson’s five through the second. 

Early in the third, the home team pulled ahead a little further with a marker from Martin Frk just 1:16 in. They were going the other way after a solid Tucson scoring chance when the puck pin-balled across a handful of Wranglers sticks before ending on the tape of Frk to finish off the play. Hunter Brzustewicz and Clark Bishop assisted on this third goal of the game. 

Sam Morton was summoned to the box shortly after this goal and the Roadrunners took this opportunity to do something about the zero on their side of the scoreboard. Egor Sokolov beat Cooley on the power play at 2:20 and cut Calgary’s lead down to 3-1. 

The energy Curtis Douglas generated in his Gallant fight came back in his favour later in the period when he netted his first goal of the season. Douglas snuck the puck over Copley’s shoulder at 13:13 and brought the gap between these teams down to just a single goal. 

Adam Klapka made his best effort to create some breathing room in the score in the final few minutes and did score. However, he knocked the post off and the goal would not count. What would count was an empty netter by Dryden Hunt in the last 12 seconds of the game. That put the curtain call on this game and Calgary beat Tucson 4-2. 

The shots finished 34-31 and Devin Cooley picked up his league-leading 13th win of the season. The three stars went to Clark Bishop for the third, Martin Frk for the second and Dryden Hunt for the first. This individual performance was the highest amount of points Hunt put up this season so far. Good time for him to step up with a few of his peers getting the call to the Flames earlier this week.

Scoring stat summary

Hunter Brzustewicz – 1A

Rory Kerins – 1A

Ilya Solovyov – 2A

William Stromgren – 1G

Dryden Hunt – 1G, 2A

Clark Bishop – 2A

Martin Frk – 1G

Jonathan Aspirot – 1G

Highlights

Next up

The Flames and Utah Hockey Club’s affiliates get right back into action on Saturday night for a 6:00 p.m. MT rematch at the Saddledome. If the Wranglers continue in their winning pattern, they have the opportunity to split the season series and sweep the weekend series by the end of the night on Saturday.