Division 2nd Pacific League 13th ECHL Home record 22-12-2 | Conference 5th National 2008–09 record 34-31-8 Road record 12-19-6 | |
The 2008–09 Las Vegas Wranglers season is the Las Vegas Wranglers sixth season in the ECHL. The regular season began on October 17, 2008 against the Alaska Aces and will conclude on April 4, 2009 against the Stockton Thunder. The Wranglers will look to improve on their success from their 2007–08 season in which they won their second straight Pacific Division and National Conference regular season championships and their first appearance in the Kelly Cup Finals.
Contents
Pre-season
The Wranglers saw many changes during the offseason after the 2007–08 season, with the departures of Kelly Czuy, Jason Jozsa, and Tyson Strachan, who were picked up by teams from the American Hockey League, Bruce Mulherin who signed in Europe, and assistant coach Brent Bilodeau left the team to become head coach of the Wichita Thunder of the Central Hockey League and was replaced by former Wranglers defenseman, Mike McBain. The Wranglers entered the preseason with a roster of twenty-six players that would have to be cut down to twenty before the start of the regular season. The Wranglers would play three pre-season games; two against the division rival, Bakersfield Condors and one against the newly relocated Ontario Reign. The first game against Bakersfield was on October 9 at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas which was won, in a shootout, by the Wranglers 5–4 and the second game against the Condors was on October 11 at Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield, which was also won by the Wranglers 5–2. The Wranglers finished their preseason against Ontario on October 12 at Center Ice Arena in Ontario, defeating the Regin 4–1, ending the preseason 3-0-0.
Regular season
The Wranglers' regular season began on October 17 on the road against the Alaska Aces and their home opener was on October 23 against the Ontario Reign. The team concluded their season on April 4 with a 5–3 victory against the Stockton Thunder.
On December 22, 2008, the division rival Fresno Falcons folded in mid-season leaving only four teams in the National Conference's Pacific Division. Through the ECHL's rescheduling, the Wranglers and Ontario were given an extra game to play giving the two teams each 73 games, while Bakersfield and Stockton were left with the originally planned 72 games. With the unbalanced schedules, the ECHL decided to award the division's playoff spots and division seeding based on a team's winning percentage instead of the normal total points earned. With the original playoff format the top four teams in each division would qualify for the playoffs, but as the Pacific Division was left with only four teams, the ECHL announced that the fourth seed in the Pacific Division playoffs would be granted to either the 4th place team in the Pacific Division or the 5th placed team in the National Conference's West Division, depending on winning percentage. Stockton received the 4th seed in the Pacific Division playoffs after having a winning percentage of .493, besting the Phoenix RoadRunners's .451.
The Wranglers regular season was marred by inconsistency, due to a very inexperienced defense and an array of different goaltenders. The Wranglers would go through seven goaltenders during the season, of which only John DeCaro and Martin Houle had been signed to contracts with Las Vegas. Las Vegas saw numerous goaltenders sent down on assignment, including Matt Keetley and Kevin Lalande from Calgary, Brent Krahn from Dallas, and Glenn Fisher from Edmonton
The Wranglers finished just outside the top 10 in attendance at 11th, recording an average of 4,621 fans (166,358 total) in 36 games. The attendance figures were down considerable from the 2007–08 season, in which the Wranglers averaged 4,970 fans. As normal the Wranglers held numerous fan promotions including the sixth annual Wranglers Midnight Roundup on December 19, 2008 and the second annual Over-18 Night on March 24, 2009, featuring a performance form Mike Relm. The Wranglers were also recognized nationally for their Rod Blagojevich Prison Uniform Night. The game, which was played on January 30, 2009 between Las Vegas and the Bakersfield Condors, featured the Wranglers wearing uniforms based on classic horizontal black and white bee-striped uniforms, the Condors wearing uniforms based on the modern orange jumpsuits with black block lettering and the referees and linesmen wore prison guard inspired uniforms complete with black ties. The team also auctioned off a seat in between the two teams' benches. The promotion was inspired by the Rod Blagojevich federal corruption investigation, which included the former Illinois governor's attempt to auction off one of Illinois' seats in the United States Senate which was vacated after Barack Obama was elected as president of the United States.
During the second period of Aces-Wranglers game on March 25, 2009 in Las Vegas, when Alaska's Matt Stefanishion collided with Las Vegas' Chris Ferraro, breaking Ferraro's leg and effectively ending his season and possibly his career. Ferraro's twin brother, Peter became enraged and started a brawl that would involve nine players. During the melee, Peter Ferraro received a game misconduct penalty for spearing, as did Las Vegas' Tim Spencer for kicking. In the aftermath, the Aces were given a five-minute 5-on-3 power play in which they scored three times before the teams were at even strength. A few days after the game, the ECHL suspended Peter Ferraro for the rest of the regular season and the entirety of the 2009 Kelly Cup Playoffs for his actions during the game which included the spearing incident and was released by the team a week later.
On January 29, 2009, the Wranglers unveiled a newly redesigned website, replacing the site which had been used since the 2005-06 season.
Division standings
*Fresno folded on December 22, 2008.
Regular season
Win (2 points) Loss (0 points) Overtime/shootout loss (1 point)
Playoffs
The Wranglers clinched their fourth straight playoff appearance on March 30. The Wranglers finished second in the Pacific Division granting the team home-ice advantage for the Pacific Division semifinals against the third-seed Bakersfield Condors, the first time the two teams had met in the playoffs. The two teams would split the first two games of the series in Las Vegas, and Bakersfield would take two of the three games on their home ice, taking a 3 games to 2 series lead before the Wranglers took the final two games 3–1 and 5–1 to win the series 4 games to 3.
The Wranglers took on the fourth seeded Stockton Thunder, who upset the Pacific Division champion Ontario Reign 4 games to 3. The Wranglers and Stockton have met once in the playoffs during the 2008 National Conference Quarterfinals, Las Vegas won the series in six games. Due to conflicts with the schedules of the Orleans Arena, the first, third and fourth games were played at Stockton Arena and games two, five, six and seven would be played in Las Vegas. The home teams would win the first three games as Stockton won game one and three, while Las Vegas won game two on their home ice. Stockton had the opportunity to put the Wranglers on a razor edge in game four in Stockton, but were unable to score in overtime, the goal falling to Las Vegas' Mick Lawrence (unassisted) 28 seconds into overtime tying up the series for the Wranglers. Las Vegas would take game 5, but blundered their chance to put the Thunder away in game 6, falling 3 – 1. Las Vegas would make sure to not choke the series away, jumping to a 4 – 0 lead by the third minute of the third period and finishing of Stockton 5 – 1 to win the series 4 games to 3.
The Wranglers took on their most heated rival and National Conference regular season champion, the Alaska Aces, in the National Conference Finals. Alaska and Las Vegas have met twice in the playoffs. The first was in the 2006 West Division Finals in which Las Vegas and Alaska played a long, hard fought series that ended after the Aces subdued the Wranglers in the third overtime of the sixth game of the series; Alaska would go on to win their lone Kelly Cup championship, defeating the Gwinnett Gladiators in five games. Las Vegas would get their playoff revenge in the 2008 National Conference Semifinals defeating Alaska in five games, defeating the Aces by an average of four goals in their four wins in the series, Las Vegas would go on to their lone Kelly Cup appearance, falling to the Cincinnati Cyclones in six games. After playing two straight 7-game series, the Wranglers were unable to put up much of a fight against the National Conference regular season champions and were swept in four games.
Skaters
†Denotes player spent time with another team before joining Wranglers. Stats reflect time with the Wranglers only.
‡Denotes player is no longer with the Wranglers.
♦Denotes player is on call up in either the AHL or NHL
Bold/italics denotes franchise record
Transactions
The Wranglers have been involved in the following transactions before and during the 2008–09 season.