Old nemesis Calgary snaps Firebirds' five-game winning streak
It's still early in the American Hockey League season, but Coachella Valley Firebirds head coach Dan Bylsma admitted Saturday night's game against the Calgary Wranglers could be viewed as a measuring stick for his team. The results were not what Bylsma and the Firebirds wanted.
"I think clearly they are a good team, they have a lot of good pieces in their lineup," Bylsma said after Coachella Valley's five-game winning streak was snapped with a 4-1 loss to Western Conference rival Calgary in front of 8,152 fans at Acrisure Arena. "But we want to fancy ourselves as a good team as well. I think the game showed it. That game was a hard-fought game. We like a lot of how it was played tonight."
The game featured the top two teams from the Western Conference last year, teams that split eight regular-season games before the Firebirds rallied to win a best-of-five playoff series with an overtime victory in the fifth game. The first meeting of this season between the two teams was highly anticipated even with many of the players on both sides different from last season.
"They defended us well and when they got a chance to score, they put it in the back of the net," Bylsma said of his team's loss, its third at Acrisure Arena in five games this year.
The game was intense and spirited, with one fight in the first period, another in the third period and plenty of pushing and shoving after whistles. But one of the Firebirds in the third period fight said not to read too much into the holdover of emotions from last spring.
"I would say that's all last year," Andrew Poturalski said. "It's just another game."
Bylsma said the game did matter in some context from 2022-23.
"This is a game you circle on the calendar and say we are playing the Wranglers," Bylsma said. "That started last year and the eight-game series. We saw each of us get the better of the opponent through the eight games and in the playoffs it came down to an overtime winner in Game Five to make the difference between the two teams.
"So this is Game 1," Bylsma added. "We certainly knew we were playing a really good team."
The Firebirds, 6-3 on the young season, held a 1-0 lead after one period on the first professional goal by Ville Ottavainen, but that was the only goal Wranglers goalie Oscar Dansk would allow. Bylsma gave credit to Danks but admitted his team was frustrated with the number of shots they had that finished in Dansk's midsection. In all, Dansk finished with 40 saves.
The Wranglers added two goals in the second period, including a go-ahead goal with just 13 seconds left in the period on a spinning move by Emilio Pettersen, who found an open side of the net against Firebirds goalie Chris Driedger.
Two more goals in the third period, one by Adam Klapka and an empty-net goal by Dryden Hunt, produced the final score.
"Their record speaks for itself," Poturalski said of the 8-1-1 Wranglers. "We came out on the wrong side tonight."
The goals
Coachella Valley 1-0: Ville Ottavainen scored his first professional goal with 2:10 left in the first period, gathering the puck to himself and firing it past Dansk from the right side. Luke Henman and Max McCormick assisted on the goal.
Calgary 1-1: The Wranglers tied the score on a classic top-shelf goal by Ilya Nikolaev, skating in on Driedger and beating the Firebirds goalie with a one-timer on Driedger's glove side at the 16:35 mark of the second period. The assists went to Emilio Pettersen and Yan Kuznetsov.
Calgary 2-1: Pettersen scored his second goal of the season and his second point of the game with just 13 seconds left in the second period. Pettersen gathered the puck in front of the net and spun to his left to find an open path to the back of the net. Clark Bishop and Ben Jones had the assists.
Calgary 3-1: At the 13:59 mark of the third period, Calgary basically sealed the win on a goal by Adam Klapka, skating across the goal to his right and firing back into the lower corner of the net. Ben Jones and Rory Kerins had the assists.
Calgary 4-1: Dryden Hunt grabbed a lofted puck and fired it into an empty net with just 1:33 left in the game for the final score.
Player of the game
Ville Ottavainen: In just his 10th game as a Firebird and just his eight game of this season, the Finnish player grabbed his first professional goal. Before joining the Firebirds for two games last season, Ottavainen had played mostly international hockey in his native Finland. At 21, Ottanainen is one of the young guns the Firebirds will be counting on this season.
Ice nuggets
The Firebirds looked like they had caught a break for the Calgary game when Calgary goalie Dustin Wolf, one of the top players in the AHL last year and the most valuable player of the league, was called up to parent club the Calgary Flames on Thursday. Wolf had played seven games for the Wranglers this year with a 5-2 record and a 2.30 goals against average. Oscar Dansk, the starter for the Wranglers on Saturday night, had played just two games in 2023-24, but had just a 2.26 goals against average before allowing just one goal to the Firebirds.
Next game
The Firebirds will play the second of back-to-back home games Sunday against the Tucson Roadrunners. Game time is 5 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: AHL hockey: Firebirds struggle for offense in 4-1 home loss to Calgary
