ROSEMONT, Ill. – The Chicago Wolves are coping with a rare occurrence: a lengthy losing streak. The team lost its seventh straight on Sunday to the Houston Aeros, who were completing an eight-game road trip and who, themselves, had dropped six games in a row.
Chicago has not won a game at all in 2009. This streak ties the team’s franchise longest since the 2000-2001 season.
Houston struck first on Sunday when Ryan Hamilton scored on the power play at the 8:23 mark of the first with a top-shelf marker past Chicago netminder Dan Turple. Chicago returned the favor on the man-advantage as Spencer Machacek got a tally after parking in front of Aeroes goaltender Nolan Schaefer.
That was pretty must all the scoring that Chicago could muster up for the rest of the game. The Aeros got two more in the second stanza as Jesse Schultz, who was on the Wolves Calder Cup Championship team last year, got a big rebound into the empty side of the net. Corey Locke scored the second in the closing seconds to end the period with Houston up 3-1.
The Houston Aeros closed out their road trip on a happy note in with an empty net goal scored by Matt Beaudoin.
“Now it is psychological. It is impacting us mentally,” said Wolves head coach Don Granato, “that’s the challenge that is presented to us. We have trouble in stringing a solid 60 minutes together. We have got to find a way to fight through it. There’s not much to it. [We need to] simplify our game. We need to go back to the basics and the simplicity of the game. That’s where we have to go next, with this.”
Turple went and saved 22 for 25 shots while Schaefer was 24 of 25 for the win. The loss places the Wolves in sixth place in the West Division, three points behind Houston and thirteen points behind the Milwaukee who leads the division.
There was a pretty decent crowd of 5,255 at the Allstate Arena considering the Chicago Blackhawks also played that night, filling the United Center at 21,666. This shows that a big city can successfully have two teams playing.
Den Notes:
Goaltender Ondrej Pavelec, returned to the Wolves right before Christmas and played three games before injuring himself during the pregame warm-ups. He has been out ever since but is expected to be practicing in skates this week but is still listed as coming back a few more weeks.
Defenseman Zach Bogosian, the Atlanta’s first pick and third overall in last summer’s NHL draft was sent down to the Wolves for a conditioning stint and has played very well in the five games that he participated in.
The coaching staff of the Chicago Wolves, Head Coach Don Granato and his assistants Jason Christie and Wendell Young will do the honors and will serve as coaches for the PlantetUSA team in the AHL All-Star Classic.
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