ROSEMONT, Ill. – The Chicago Wolves returned to a familiar vantage point — first place — thanks to a successful weekend in which they won two out of three games.
On Friday the Wolves traveled to Des Moines to face the Iowa Chops. Iowa got on to the scoreboard quickly, scoring twice in the first period. But the Wolves we equal to the task, tallying a pair in less than 20 seconds apart. That was the end of the scoring. In the shoot out, the Wolves prevailed, 2-1, to give the team the 3-2 victory.
Saturday night was rougher as the team traveled north to face the Rockford IceHogs, who stunned the Wolves, 7-2. James Wisniewski, who was assigned to the team from the parent Chicago Blackhawks on a conditioning stint, scored a hat trick. Joe Motzko and Jeff Hamilton both scored on the power play for the Wolves.
The Wolves returned home Sunday night to take on the San Antonio Rampage, winners of seven straight. The game marked the debut of Brent Krahn in goal for the Wolves. He was almost perfect in the game that saw the Wolves complete the weekend with a 4-1 victory. With the victory, Chicago climbed took a share of first place.
Krahn was assigned by the Dallas Stars to the Wolves after playing six games with the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers. Krahn made two spectacular saves in a row in the second period where he poked the puck away while sprawled on his stomach.
After a scoreless first, left wing Tomas Pospisil scored his first goal of the season at the one minute mark. Joe Motzko set him up with a big rebound where he shoveled the puck through two defenders and Rampage goaltender Al Montoya whose record falls to 1-11.
On the power play Motzko fired a shot through the crease parallel to the goal line but Hamilton was waiting on the other side to tic tac the goal in on a tight angle. Under a minute and a half later, Steve Martins parked himself in front of the net where he received a rebound from the corner and fired it past over Montoya’s glove. Motzko got his chance to score as he took a breakaway in to give the Wolves their fourth goal of the period.
San Antonio spoiled Krahn’s shutout bid halfway into the third period where Derek Nesbitt took the puck off the faceoff and fired it past Krahn.
“We did a lot of things well and we did a lot of things right, things we didn’t do last night,” said Wolves head coach Don Granato, “The team we played I thought played great. I thought they even played better than the team we played last night. But the difference was us. We did what we needed to do, we had better intention and intensity and focus on details and that made the difference. They came at us hard, they came at us very hard.”
Montoya was 28 for 32 on shots while Krahn went 22 for 23.
Motzko has 11 points in his last six, with a goal in each of his last five. Hamilton has 10 points in his last six. The four goals scored in the second was the most in one period for the team this year.
Contact the author at matt.chin@prohockeynews.com
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