Wranglers re-sign Alex Gallant, add Denver champion Kent Anderson

Calgary kept one of the AHL’s most recognizable tone-setters and added a homegrown defenseman coming off a championship run, a clear signal that the Wranglers want next season built on both muscle and mobility.

The club announced on May 16 that it had re-signed forward Alex Gallant and signed defenseman Kent Anderson to AHL contracts. Gallant returns for his 12th AHL season and his eighth with the Calgary Flames affiliate, extending a career defined less by flash than by force. In 427 AHL games, the 32-year-old has piled up 1,331 penalty minutes, and he added 179 more in 42 regular-season games for Calgary in 2025-26, along with three assists. He finished fifth in the league in penalty minutes, a number that underscores how much the Wranglers still value his ability to set a hard edge in a long season.

Gallant’s path has stretched from Summerside, Prince Edward Island, to stops with the San Jose Barracuda, Syracuse Crunch, Chicago Wolves and Stockton Heat before landing in Calgary’s AHL orbit. For a club that finished the 2024-25 regular season with 61 points and a 23-34-10-5 record, keeping that kind of veteran presence matters. Gallant is not just an enforcer on paper. He is the sort of roster piece coaches use to change the temperature of a game and protect younger skill players when the schedule turns heavy.

Anderson brings a different kind of value. The Calgary native joined the Wranglers on an amateur tryout at the end of last season and played the final two games in Colorado, giving the organization a short look at his pro readiness. He had just finished captaining the University of Denver to an NCAA national championship, and Denver named him the 96th captain in program history on Oct. 3, 2025. At 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds, the right-shot defenseman gives Calgary another big body on the back end, and one with local roots through the Calgary Northstars.

The off-ice profile is strong, too. The NCHC lists Anderson with a 3.94 grade-point average, along with four NCHC Honor Roll selections and four Distinguished Scholar-Athlete honors. That combination of size, leadership and reliability fits a Wranglers blue line that needs competition for depth roles and a steadier foundation after a difficult season. Calgary did not just add two players. It paired a veteran identity piece with a young defender whose championship background and academic track record point to a different kind of upside.