Wolves entend points streak but lose in shootout to Admirals
MILWAUKEE — The Wolves wrapped up a four-game road trip by falling to the Admirals 5-4 in a shootout Friday night in Milwaukee.
Rocco Grimaldi had a goal and two assists, Max Comtois and Hudson Elynuik each added a goal and an assist and Cory Conacher also scored but the Wolves couldn’t hold off a Milwaukee rally. The Wolves did extend their points streak to four games with the shootout defeat to pull within eight points of idle Manitoba for the fifth and final Central Division postseason berth.
The Wolves struck first when Grimaldi scored just 4 minutes, 8 seconds into the opening period. The veteran forward attempted a pass that hit off a defender and bounced through the pads of Admirals goaltender Yaroslav Askarov. Ronan Seeley and Hudson Elynuik were awarded assists on Grimaldi’s team-leading 34th goal of the season.
Later in the first, Comtois extended the lead to 2-0 with the Wolves on the power play. Grimaldi found an open Comtois in front with a pass and the forward gathered the puck before beating Askarov to the stick side for his 18th goal of the season. Grimaldi and Cole Schneider had assists.
The Wolves kept coming and took a 3-goal advantage into the first intermission after Conacher notched his eighth goal of the season in the waning moments of the period. The forward went to the net and buried a rebound off a Dominic Franco rush and shot. Franco had the lone assist on the play.
Milwaukee came out flying in the second and pulled into a 3-3 tie on scores by Tye Felhaber, Alex Campbell and Cal O’Reilly.
Early in the third, Elynuik put the Wolves out in front when the forward redirected a shot from Comtois past Askarov from in close. Assisting on Elynuik’s sixth goal of the season — and fourth in the last three games — were Comtois and Grimaldi.
Milwaukee knotted it at 4-4 on Ryan Ufko’s goal a short time later and won it in the fifth round of the shootout on Campbell’s score.
Keith Kinkaid (30 saves) suffered the loss in goal for the Wolves while Askarov (22 saves) earned the win for the Admirals.
With the loss, the Wolves fell to 22-32-6-7 while Milwaukee moved to 44-21-1-1.