One-goal victory over Utah keeps Wranglers sharp

The ECHL postseason is several weeks away, but the Wranglers appear to be in playoff mode.

Las Vegas has been involved in a lot of close games lately -- going to overtime or a shootout in six of its previous nine outings -- and Friday's game against Utah was no different.

The Wranglers took a 2-1 lead on Brandon Kaleniecki's goal 6:02 into the second period and hung on to defeat the Grizzlies by that score before a crowd of 4,956 at the Orleans Arena.

Kaleniecki beat Grizzlies goalie Mike Mole, on an assist from Marco Peluso, with a blast from the right circle. The puck went between Mole's left arm and left leg, then trickled across the goal line.

Las Vegas (39-11-12, 90 points) outshot Utah 37-31 and held the Grizzlies (30-25-7, 67 points) scoreless on seven power plays, including two in the third period.

"This is the type of game we need to win," Kaleniecki said. "A 2-1 hockey game is kind of the way we expect things to be coming down the stretch and the playoffs -- games where you're going to have to kill penalties and find ways to win tight games.

"We had a little bit of a down month or whatever it was, but we're starting to get it back together."

The teams traded goals less than a minute apart spanning the first and second periods.

Las Vegas defenseman Jason Krischuk scored a power-play goal with 26 seconds left in the first period. Tyler Mosienko set up the score with a centering pass from near the boards, and Krischuk ripped a one-timer from the high slot past Mole, who made 35 saves.

The Wranglers, who entered with the ECHL's fourth-best power play (21.1 percent), finished 1-for-5 with the man advantage.

"We needed to score on the power play tonight. That was one of our keys," coach Glen Gulutzan said. "We competed pretty hard and did a lot of good things."

Mosienko, second on the team with 56 points (21 goals, 35 assists), extended his assists streak to six games and has 10 points (2-8) in that span.

Wranglers goalie Daniel Manzato essentially gave the Grizzlies their tying goal, turning over the puck behind the net as he tried to clear it along the boards. Travis Rycroft stole the puck, knocking it down with his glove, and poked it into the empty net for an easy, unassisted score.

"It was a little bit of a bad play by (Manzato), but not overly bad," Gulutzan said. "They got a little lucky. It hit his glove and bounced right to him. We ask our goalies to play the puck, and that happens sometimes. It was the first time it happened all season, so it was just some bad luck."

Manzato made 30 saves and improved to 21-5-6.

• NOTES -- Las Vegas leads Fresno (36-16-8, 80) by 10 points in the race for the best record in the Pacific Division and National Conference. The Wranglers have 10 games remaining, seven at home, where they are 19-4-6. ... Left wing Nathan Barrett made his debut for Las Vegas.