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Wolves sink Admirals 5-3

Five different Chicago Wolves scored as the defending Calder Cup champions posted a gritty 5-3 victory over the Admirals on Wednesday in Milwaukee.

Blake Murray had a goal and 2 assists, Malte Stromwall a goal and an assist and Oliver Cooper, Noel Gunler and Vasily Ponomarev also scored to lift the Wolves to their second victory during their now-completed three-game road trip.

Despite having a makeshift lineup due to 10 players being sidelined with injuries, the Wolves snapped the Central Division-leading Admirals' six-game winning streak.

Captain Max Lajoie chipped in with 2 assists and goaltender Zachary Sawchenko held off a barrage of Milwaukee shots and finished with 39 saves to help the Wolves improve to 4-4-1-0 on the season.

The Admirals opened the scoring on a goal by Markus Nurmi but the Wolves tied it later in the first period on Cooper's first American Hockey League goal. Playing in his second game with Chicago, the center pounced on a loose puck in the slot and chipped it past Admirals goaltender Yaroslav Askarov.

The teams traded goals within the first 90 seconds of the second period. First, Stromwall followed up his own shot from in close and batted the rebound into the back of the net for his second goal of the season and a 2-1 Wolves lead. Milwaukee answered right back on a score by Tommy Novak.

Murray then notched his first goal of the season - and the first of his AHL career - off a pretty Tic-Tac-Toe passing play. Josh Melnick fed Malte Stromwall who then found Murray for an easy tap-in and a 3-2 Chicago advantage.

Again, the lead was short-lived as Juuso Parssinen scored less than a minute later to knot the score at 3-3 midway through the second.

Then it was all Wolves as Gunler recorded his first goal of the season when the forward wired a wrist shot from the high slot that sailed past Askarov to the stick side.

The Wolves increased their lead to 5-3 when Ponomarev banged home a shot off a terrific pass from Tuukka Tieksola for his third goal of the season.

That was all the scoring in the game as the Wolves locked down Milwaukee in the third period.

The Wolves killed all four Admirals power plays to hand Askarov (18 saves) the loss in goal as Milwaukee dropped to 7-3-0-0.

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