ROSEMONT, Ill. – Chicago Wolves goaltender Pheonix Copley turned aside 20 shots for his first shutout of the season as the Wolves muted the Iowa Wild, 5-0, on Saturday night in their first appearance at Allstate Arena in 20 days.
Rookies Bryce Gervais (2G), Samuel Blais (G, A), Conner Bleackley (A) and Vince Dunn (A) accounted for 6 of the Wolves’ 13 points in the contest. Copley (2-2-1) earned his seventh American Hockey League shutout as the Wolves (6-7-1-1) split the weekend series with the Wild (6-10-0-1).
“I just liked the way we competed and we played the right way tonight,” said Wolves head coach Craig Berube. “The start of the game tonight was a lot different than in Iowa. We were being more assertive and executing and playing on the right side of things.”
The Wolves opened the game with jump and, just 1:20 into the frame, Wade Megan netted his fifth goal of the season from Iowa goaltender Steve Michalek’s doorstep on a cross-slot feed from Landon Ferraro.
In a relatively quiet middle session for Chicago — just two shots on net — the team managed to double their lead. On the rush, Alex Friesen fed Blais a cross-slot pass for a wrist shot that found the back of the net at 17:34.
The Wolves continued to extend their lead in the final frame. At 5:34, Andrew Agozzino redirected a Brett Sterling pass from the middle of the right circle for a power-play tally and his third goal of the season.
Just 46 seconds later on the rush, Blais dropped a pass back to Jordan Schmaltz for a shot. Gervais crashed the net for the rebound and the puck went off his body into the net for the 4-0 lead.
In the last five minutes of play, Bleackley whipped the puck out of the left offensive corner to Emerson Clark near the slot for a shot. Again Gervais crashed the net and wrangled the rebound for his second marker of the evening.
Iowa’s Michalek (4-5-1) was in net for 57:56 of the contest and stopped 17 of 22 shots. At the end of the first period he was replaced by Alex Stalock, who stopped the single shot he faced, as the starting netminder needed to fix the blade on his right skate.
The Wolves head to Charlotte for a set of weekday games (Nov. 22-23) against the Checkers. Puck drop is slated for 6 p.m. for both contests and they will stream live on AHLLive.com. For complete 2016-17 game and broadcast schedules, visit ChicagoWolves.com.
