The first round opponent for the Calgary Wranglers in the upcoming Calder Cup playoffs has finally been decided. The Wranglers will face the Tucson Roadrunners, American Hockey League affiliate of the Arizona Coyotes, in a best-of-three first round series.
Let's fast forward to Wednesday night ◽️◻️⬜️#LetsGoTucson
— Tucson Roadrunners (@RoadrunnersAHL) April 22, 2024
The Wranglers finished the 2023-24 regular season with a 35-28-6-3 record and 79 points, good enough for seventh place in the AHL’s Pacific Division. The Roadrunners went 43-23-4-2 and 92 points, slotting into second place. They’re facing off in a best-of-three series with games this coming Wednesday, Friday and (if necessary) Sunday, all in Tucson to save on travel expenses in the opening round. Puck drop is 8 p.m. MT (Calgary) time and the games can be streamed on AHL TV.
The AHL expanded and modified their playoff structure, expanding from 16 to 23 teams and including all but the two lowest finishers in each division. Each division has a modified play-in structure, which produces four teams to face off in the division semi-final round.
The Wranglers and Roadrunners met four times during the regular season, with each team winning twice. With both team’s parent club missing the Stanley Cup playoffs, both clubs received an injection of players from the NHL in recent days: the Flames returned Dustin Wolf, Ilya Solovyov, Adam Klapka and Matt Coronato to the Wranglers, while the Roadrunners recieved Vladislav Kolyachonok, Michael Kesselring, Aku Raty, Dylan Guenther and Josh Doan from the Coyotes. (Tucson also added Conor Geekie from the WHL’s Swift Current Broncos.)
This is the third consecutive season that the Flames’ AHL affiliate has qualified for the Calder Cup playoffs.
We’ll have more on the Wranglers’ run through the Calder Cup playoffs as the story unfolds.
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