2008–09 Las Vegas Wranglers Season - Regular Season

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 of 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 eleceted 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.