Wolves topped by Texas

The Chicago Wolves wrapped up their season-long, seven-game homestand by falling to the Texas Stars 5-2 on Sunday at Allstate Arena.

Bradly Nadeau scored twice and Ryan Suzuki had two assists for the Wolves, who came up short and dropped their fourth game in a row to finish the homestand 3-4-0-0. Matej Blumel had two goals and an assist to propel Texas, which clinched a Central Division postseason berth with the win.

The Stars took the lead on a goal by Cameron Hughes just 5 minutes, 1 second into the opening period and stretched it to 3-0 on scores by Blumel and Kole Lind before Nadeau struck twice late in the first to cut the deficit to 3-2.

First, the rookie forward banged home a rebound of his own shot past Stars netminder Remi Poirier during a goalmouth scramble. The goal was assisted by Suzuki.

Nadeau wasn’t done as he tallied again 1:42 later when he took a feed from Nikita Pavlychev in the slot and beat Poirier to the glove side. Pavlychev and Suzuki recorded helpers on Nadeau’s team-leading 24th goal of the season.

Blumel’s second tally of the game in the opening moments of the second extended the Texas lead to 4-2 and was the only score of the period. It also spelled the end of Wolves goaltender Ruslan Khazheyev as he was replaced by Dustin Tokarski, who went the rest of the way.

The Stars kept shining in the third as Curtis McKenzie found the back of the net early on to make it 5-2 and that’s the way it ended.

Khazheyev finished with eight saves while Tokarski had 12 for the Wolves. Poirier (29 saves) earned the win for the Stars.

Chicago dropped to 30-27-3-0 on the season while Texas improved 37-20-3-0.