ROSEMONT, Ill. – The Chicago Wolves are returning to the playoffs after missing last season for only the second time in franchise history. But this weekend’s games left much to be desired for a team eager to go deep into the postseason.
On Friday, the Wolves faced their first round opponents in the Milwaukee Admirals and were completely dismantled in an 8-1 loss. Chicago couldn’t dig itself out of a hole, and netminder Drew MacIntyre came in to shut the door on the opposition. But the Wolves did clinch the West Division title on this day, because Texas lost to Rockford.
The Wolves on Saturday returned home to face the lowly Grand Rapids Griffins. Peter Mannino started in goal and the offense poured it on early as the Wolves notched four unanswered goals on their way to a 6-4 victory.
“We controlled it for two periods,” said head coach Don Lever. “We have had a tough time in playing three periods of hockey for the last three and a half weeks”
Defenseman Paul Postma posted the team’s first tally at the 11:32 mark of the first on the power play. The Wolves’ rookie blueliner leads all team defenseman with 29 points and 15 goals for the season.
Minutes later, center Kevin Doell stole a loose puck and rushed on the breakaway to give the Wolves a two goal lead. Then Riley Armstrong was called for a hooking penalty, placing Chicago on the power play where tight knit passing forced Griffins’ netminder Thomas McCollum to commit on a pass to Tim Stapleton, who picked his spot to close the scoring in the first.
Doell was called for a roughing and a high sticking penalty that gave Grand Rapids the man advantage, but Spencer Machacek tallied at 1:11 gave the Wolves a four goal cushion to start the second. It wasn’t until the end of the period is when the Griffins finally go on the board, as Francis Pare tipped in a shot from the point by Doug Janik at 15:01. Just 26 second later the Wolves got that goal back as Johnny Pohl whipped a pass at the point to put the Wolves back up by four.
In the third period, Griffins’ winger Jeremy Williams had a career frame. Williams scored three goals in the third on each specialty team and one at regular strength. On the power play, Mannino let a rare rebound bounce right to Williams who was able to pick his spot behind the net at the 7:46 mark. Two and a half minutes later, the Wolves lost possession of the puck and Williams was able to float one in at even strength. After Pohl got one back for the Wolves, Williams scored short-handed with just under 15 seconds left in the game. To make things interesting, the puck did go into the Wolves net one more time in the waning seconds but it was called off after the officials called the puck going in on the kicking motion negating the score.
The Allstate Arena crowd of 14,019 watched as Mannino got the win going 35-39 while his counterpart McCollum stopped 21 of the 27 shots he faced. The Wolves ended the season with a record of 49-24-1-6, placing them second in the Western Conference. Playoffs against Milwaukee begin at home with games on Wednesday and Friday, and continue in Milwaukee the next day for game three.
Contact the author at matt.chin@prohockeynews.com
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