ROSEMONT, Ill. – The Ringling Bros. circus has left the Chicago Wolves home rink after displacing the team for two weeks. But it seems like the Greatest Show on Earth left a few stinky presents.
The Wolves played three straight games right after Thanksgiving, and by the look of things they were the ones being stuffed.
On Friday the team travelled to Grand Rapids to face ex-captain Darren Haydar and lost to the Griffins, 3-2. Saturday night, theWolves traveled back home to face the division rivals, the Quad City Flames. The Wolves staked out a 3-0 lead but with 4:18 left on the clock the Flames scored their first, somehow triggering a Chicago defensive collapse. Quad City scored three goals in all within a 2:09 tie the game in regulation. Chicago redeemed itself in the extra period when Brett Sterling, who has been stellar since his return from the parent Atlanta Thrashers, took the puck around the net and angled a shot high for the game winner.
On Sunday, the Wolves again faced Grand Rapids in their own house. Goaltenders Robert Gherson and Daniel Larsson were great in facing 29 shots apiece. The only mistake occurred when Chicago turned over the puck deep where Evan McGrath took a rebound and put it past Gherson for the only goal of the game. This was the first time Chicago had been held scoreless all season.
“It was a tough weekend. Certainly today we couldn’t find the back of the net and we couldn’t find the front of the net. We couldn’t challenge there, what are you going to say,” dejected Wolves coach Don Granato said after the Sunday game. “Obviously we want better and we want better results. The season is about progress and it is about learning where you are at and making improvements from there. There are areas that we will target to simplify our game. Some of the simple things that we were very well at a couple of weeks ago, weren’t there. It was a struggle for us.”
Both Chicago and Grand Rapids were 0-4 on the power play.
With a little over a quarter of the season finished, the Wolves aren’t doing all that bad. The team has a new coaching staff and lost most of their leading scores from last season. If you look at the point leaders, no Wolves player appears on the top scorers list until the past the 60th position. But the team still leads the West Division. All the points really count in the division in that all but the struggling San Antonio Rampage are within six points from first to seventh.
As a team the Wolves are also in some uncharted territories on special teams, the team ranks dead last on the power play and just average on the penalty kill. The team also lost goaltender Ondrej Pavelec to the Thrashers. The tandem of Gherson and Dan Turple has played surprisingly well winning eight of the thirteen games played. With that the Wolves has one of the best defenses in the league in goals allowed.
Including Pavelec, the Thrashers have also made a couple on other call-ups. Defensively the team lost a physical player in Boris Valabik and on the offense Joey Crabb who has improved his game dramatically since the start of last season’s playoffs.
Contact the author at matt.chin@prohockeynews.com
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