Wolves drop Wild one in shootout

DES MOINES, Iowa — The Chicago Wolves and Iowa Wild battled all the way into a shootout Thursday night.

But the Wild outscored the Wolves to claim a 5-4 triumph at Wells Fargo Arena.

The Wolves (3-3-0-1) received regulation goals from Shane Harper, Keith Aucoin, David Shields and Brent Regner in their first game against the Wild (4-1-0-0) and first shootout of the season.

Aucoin, Harper, Shields, Sergey Andronov and Chris Porter recorded multipoint games.

The Wild opened the scoring with a rebound off a redirect by Tyler Graovac 5:14 into the game.

The Wolves responded 44 seconds later when Harper beat screened goaltender Johan Gustafsson, who stopped 19 of 23 shots before being replaced by Darcy Kuemper at 30:36.

Kuemper (2-1-0) stopped all 21 shots he faced in regulation and 3 of 6 in the shootout to net the win.

Shields briefly put the Wolves ahead at 7:46 of the first period with a goal after pinching to corral a rebound. But the Wild evened the score again four minutes later on a goal from Raphael Bussieres that beat Jake Allen (3-1-1), who made 27 saves.

The Wolves took another brief lead when Regner notched his first goal of the season on an elevated shot from the point that dribbled past Gustafsson, but the Wild’s Brett Bulmer struck back 11 seconds later with a backhand goal.

The Wild went ahead on a tip-in from Kris Foucault off a wrist shot from the point. Aucoin notched a power-play goal to knot the score at 4-4 at 10:36 of the second.

The score remained the same through overtime and into the shootout. The Wolves took an early lead as Harper and Corey Locke scored on the team’s first two attempts. But the Wild scored on 4 of 6 shots to skate away with the victory.