CHICAGO, Ill. – The Chicago Wolves came out strong in the first period and defeated the Midwest Division leading Charlotte Checkers by the score of 5-2. The win helped place the Wolves in second in the division just three points out. The three-game sweep this weekend was the first time the team has done this feat in just a little over a year. “It was a good weekend,” said Wolves Head Coach Craig MacTavish, “we are now making some inroads and digging ourselves out of a little bit of a hole that we had at the start of the year. They beat us 4-1 last time in here, we got out of the gate slowly and tonight we rectified that and had a pretty good first period.
Right wing Mark Mancari swept in the puck as it sat in front of the net after Nathan Longpre carried the puck in and centered a pass to Steve Reinprecht at the 3:12 mark of the first. It was again the same trio late in the first as the Wolves passed the puck around and Longpre fired a shot towards the net that was deflected in past Charlotte netminder Mike Murphy by Mancari giving him his team leading 14th goal.
The Wolves made it a quick 3-0 lead in the 1:17 into the second as Right wingers Victor Oreskovich and Byron Bitz skated into the offensive zone shoulder-to-shoulder. Oreskovich passed back to a slowed down Bitz who snapped a shot at Murphy that rebounded out to a two Wolves covering around deep to the net and forward Tim Miller was able to slash the puck in.
In what really can turn into a momentum changer as we have seen with the Wolves early in the season, as the Wolves were on the power-play, Charlotte scored a short-handed goal as the puck was turned over in the Wolves offensive zone to center Zac Dalpe who scored on a breakaway.
The Checkers made it interesting as they scored 4:29 into the third to bring them within one goal of the Wolves. Charlotte won the faceoff to the right of Wolves goaltender Eddie Lack, Sean Dolan got the puck out to Bobby Sanguinetti near the blueline and placed the shot that bounced of left wing Nicolas Blanchard who gathered it and fired it off the left post and in.
The Wolves did not let the two goals bother them as in the past. The M&M team of Mancari and Miller struck again. The duo took the puck in on and odd-man rush. Marcari got the defenseman to commit and unselfishly passed the puck over to Miller who was able to backhand the puck in for the goal.
What is with the surge all of a sudden when asked to Miller? “Our fourth line played great tonight, they provide a lot of energy for us, they were mucking it up a bit in front of the net and we were feeding off of that in front of the net.” But also, “We had a team meeting during the week and we sat down about an hour long and just talked about what each person need to do individually to help the team and I thought that was important for us since we are getting to the halfway point of the season. We know we are at that point of the season were you can move up big or go down. We don’t want to be in that middle of the pack all year, so we are trying to make that push now.”
All-Star Captain Darren Haydar wrapped up the scoring with an empty net goal with just under two minutes left.
Charlotte’s Murphy stopped 22 of the shots he face in the loss while Eddie Lack went 32 of 24 and was named the Third-Star of the night. Miller was named the number Two-Star with his two goals and Mancari was the number One-Star with two goals and an assist.
Other Weekend Highlights.
Friday the Wolves traveled to Peoria to face the Rivermen and came out with another 5-2 victory that was highlighted by left wing Mike Duco’s first career hat trick. Right wing Byron Bitz who hasn’t played since March of 2010 scored in his first game back. “Bitz really adds an element to our lineup that we needed,” said MacTavish, “There was a void there and he’s filled it with a big body. He is a prototypical player that we need.” Both teams had 32 shots on goal each with Lack getting the win.
On Saturday, in front of the season’s largest crowd of 15,319 fans, saw the Wolves defeat the Lake Erie Monsters by the score of 3-1. The Wolves let the Monsters get the first goal and only two shots on goal in the first but then never looked back as they did the rest of the scoring in the second period with a three goal burst. Both teams were fairly even on shots for the game with only 41 total shots taken combined.
“We had pretty good consistency throughout the nine periods,” said MacTavish. “We have had good periods before. We had decent stretches but we’ve had one good period then we take out foot off the throttle and they get back. We had the level of consistency this weekend that we haven’t had previously.”
“Coming into the third game you have to do something to stand out. Your first four shifts of the game are really important, it sets the tone, and it sets the pace, its gets everyone awake and ready,” as Mark Mancari stated regarding this weekend’s games. “We all owned up, we all did our jobs. Everyone did what they had to do to win, we stuck to our systems and we did what worked.”
As for Sunday’s game Tim Miller, “Our fourth line played great tonight, they provide a lot of energy for us, they were mucking it up a bit in front of the net and we were feeding off of that in front of the net.”
Miller also added, “We had a team meeting during the week and we sat down about an hour long and just talked about what each person need to do individually to help the team and I thought that was important for us since we are getting to the halfway point of the season. We know we are at that point of the season were you can move up big or go down. We don’t want to be in that middle of the pack all year, so we are trying to make that push now.”
These past two games were the first of six at home and also the first of five games in eight day with a 11am start on Wednesday against Rockford.
Contact the writer at matt.chin@prohockeynews.com
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