GLENVIEW, Ill. – Josh Melnick had a goal and an assist while William Lagesson and Vasily Ponomarev also scored to lift the Chicago Wolves past the Texas Stars 3-1 on Tuesday at Allstate Arena.
The Wolves also got strong goaltending from Pyotr Kochetkov to earn their second consecutive victory while snapping Texas’ three-game winning streak.
“It’s nice to see us get results,” Wolves coach Brock Sheahan said. “I feel like that helps us trend in the right direction in how we want to play.”
In a rare morning start thanks to the Wolves’ first of three School Day Games, Melnick got Chicago off on the right track in the waning seconds of the opening period when he scored his first goal of the season. The center took a terrific feed from Tuukka Tieksola, broke in alone on Stars goaltender Matt Murray and buried a shot past the netminder to the stick side for a 1-0 advantage.
After a scoreless second, the Stars knotted the score at 1-1 on power-play goal by Curtis McKenzie.
The Wolves regained the lead midway through the third on Lagesson’s second goal of the season. Melnick found his teammate cruising into the slot and put the puck on his stick. Lagesson didn’t miss as he wired a shot past the glove of Murray. Tuukka Tieksola picked up his second assist of the game on the goal.
Ponomarev sealed the deal for the Wolves with an empty-net goal, his second score of the season.
Kochetkov (28 saves) out-dueled Murray (30 saves) to earn the victory.
“Offensively, I still think we can be better even though we had 32 shots,” Sheahan said. “We can generate more quality but I think our effort the last two games has been way more consistent.”
The Wolves improved to 2-2-0-0 on the season while the Stars dropped to 3-2-0-0.
Next up: The Wolves travel to Rockford to face the IceHogs on Friday night at 7 p.m. (AHLTV).
For information on Wolves ticket plans for the 2022-23 season — everything from single-game tickets to Flex Packs to group outings — visit ChicagoWolves.com or call 1-800-THE-WOLVES.
