Wolves come out fast, outlast Rivermen, 5-2

PEORIA, ILL – The Chicago Wolves dominated the Peoria Rivermen early on

and then held on for a 5-2 victory in front of 4931 fans at Carver Arena on Friday night. Mike Duco had a hat trick for the victorious visitors and Eddie Lack white knuckled his way through a frantic third period in the win.
 
The only scoring in the first period came when Adam Polasek sent the puck behind the net to Mark Mancari, who skated it for a moment before sending it out front to Nathan Longpre. Longpre blasted it past Peoria goaltender Ben Bishop for a 1-0 lead at 18:22 of the period. Chicago out shot Peoria 13-4 during those first 20 minutes.
 
As uneventful as the first period seemed to be, both teams made up for lost time in the second period with four goals and a fight.
 
Steve Reinprecht raced down the ice and dished to Mike Duco, who pinballed the puck around the goal frame for Chicago’s second goal at 11:50 of the second period.
 
Fifteen seconds later, Brett Sonne handled the puck in traffic and spun a pass to Stefan Della Rovere, who put is past Chicago goalie Eddie Lack to cut the lead in half, 2-1.
 
At 13:38, the Wolves worked the puck with several passes in their offensive zone. Tim Miller was able to keep the puck in and he fed Byron Bitz for his first goal of the season and a 3-1 Chicago lead.
 
Just as time expired on a Rivermen power play late in the period, it was Duco again, whose shot from the top of the circle trickled through Bishop’s five-hole for a 4-1 Chicago lead.
 
The period also featured a fight. After a questionable call on Della Rovere for a hit to the head on Nolan Baumgartner, Yann Sauve jumped on Della Rovere. Sauve was staggered by a Della Rovere uppercut early in the fight and, while there was some jersey pulling after that, the fight was, essentially over. Della Rovere’s original minor stood, along with a fighting major. Sauve was given a fighting major, a minor for instigating, and an accompanying misconduct penalty to go along with his sore nose.
 
The third period would see almost a reverse of the first period, as the Rivermen dominated play and out-shot the Wolves 14-6. With the game almost out of reach, Rivermen head coach Jared Bednar started mixing up his lines, with significant results.
 
At 9:13 of the period, with Sonne and Della Rovere camped in front of thecrease, Tyler Shattock passed the puck up from behind the net and Sonne buried to cut the lead to two, 4-2. The Rivermen tried to build on that momentum, but it was not to be. Despite out-shooting Chicago 14-6 in the final period, the only other goal was an empty net tally by Duco to complete his hat trick and make the final score 5-2.
 
Each team had 32 shots on the night. Lack stopped 30 of those and Bishop 28. Neither team scored on the power play, of which Chicago had four chances and Peoria three.
 
NOTES: About 3 hours before the game, a youth team from Pekin, IL squared off against a team from Springfield, IL. It was a very good game with about a dozen kids on each side about Squirt age. Springfield won 5-3.   Te Rivermen will have a rare Saturday night off before hosting Milwaukee for a 5pm Family Night game on Sunday.
  Contact the author: Shaun.Bill@ProHockeyNews.com