“We wanted to spend another day or two together here.”
Calgary Wranglers head coach Mitch Love had those words after Wednesday’s 1-0 win saved his club’s season. The regular-season champion Wranglers were not ready to go home for the summer.
Now the Wranglers will face that same win-or-go-home scenario tonight when they settle the Pacific Division final with Coachella Valley at Acrisure Arena. Another few days in the sun and warm weather for rest and recovery from four games in seven nights — including Game 3 going to triple overtime on Monday — does not hurt, either.
Along with a 27-save shutout from star netminder Dustin Wolf, the Wranglers got a power-play goal from Cole Schwindt in the Game 4 win. And unlike Monday when they lost a two-goal lead, Calgary held the potent Firebirds offense in check.
What was the difference?
“I don’t know,” Love said, before quipping, “I mean, our goalie was pretty sharp. That’s one place to start.
“I thought we had some good composure to our game. It got a little erratic there in the third period. I thought we sat back a little bit, but we found a way and that was the most important part of the game. We’re excited for the challenge here in Game 5.”
The Milwaukee Admirals received a major boost Wednesday with the return of defenseman Kevin Gravel from injury.
Gravel had missed the previous four games after playing 49 regular-season contests with the Admirals and 23 more in the NHL with the parent Nashville Predators. He is also a seasoned playoff performer, winning a Calder Cup with Manchester as a rookie in 2015 and reaching the conference finals with Ontario in 2016 and Stockton in 2022.
“[Sitting out is] never easy,” Gravel said Thursday via the team website. “It’s obviously much, much more nerve-wracking sitting in the stands watching the game than sitting on the bench and having the ability to have an impact on it. Thrilled to be back.”
Stars head coach Neil Graham is not one to panic, and he is not going to start now.
Texas battled Milwaukee down to the final week of the regular season for first place in the Central Division before securing it. Home-ice advantage came with that as the Stars will need back-to-back wins at H-E-B Center to advance to the Western Conference finals. They bounced back with a win following a Game 1 loss in Milwaukee and will try to duplicate that effort tonight.
“There’s a lot more good to look at than bad,” Graham said via the team website. “It’s important not to overreact. No one likes to see a goal go in in the last minute, but you can’t overreact in the situation whether that’s a win or a loss. We’re not going to overreact. We had faith in our group after Game 1, and we have faith in our group after Game 3.
“You can’t get too far ahead of yourself. You can’t start thinking about what-ifs. You just have to play the game, and that’s a strength of our team that doesn’t worry me.”
― Patrick Williams
