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Wolves fall behind early and don't recover

CEDAR PARK, Texas - The Chicago Wolves could not overcome an early deficit and multi-point games from all-stars Maxime Fortunus and Travis Morin as they fell to the Texas Stars 3-2 on Friday night at the Cedar Park Center.

Defenseman Petteri Lindbohm and right wing Shane Harper scored for the Wolves (21-16-4-1), who saw their 3-game point streak snapped. Making his third consecutive start, goaltender Jordan Binnington (12-7-2, 26 saves) posted another solid effort but suffered the loss.

After a fast-paced but scoreless first period, the Stars (17-15-9-0) took the lead early in the middle frame. As the Wolves got caught in the offensive zone, forwards Morin and Brendan Ranford broke out on a 2-on-1 rush the other way. Morin carried the puck into the Wolves' zone before feeding Ranford, who moved in alone on Binnington and beat the sprawled goaltender with a backhander at 1:20.

The Stars made it 2-0 at 16:22 when Fortunus released a blast from the top of the right faceoff circle that evaded a screened Binnington,

The Wolves answered before the end of the period on a power play. Center Pat Cannone threaded a pass along the blue line to Lindbohm, who utilized the open ice release a rifle that beat Stars goaltender Jussi Rynnas, cutting the score to 2-1 at 18:51.

The Stars countered with a man-advantage goal in the third period when Fortunus notched his second. He took the puck in the middle of the zone and dinged a shot off the post and into the net for what proved to be the game-winner.

Harper made it 3-2 with 16.3 seconds remaining, chasing down a puck in the crease and scoring on a difficult angle.

The Wolves face off against the Stars in a rematch today at 7 p.m. The Wolves return to Allstate Arena on Saturday, Jan. 31, to host the Rockford IceHogs.

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