MILWAUKEE—The Chicago Wolves began a set of three games in three nights with a 5-2 loss to the Admirals on Wednesday night in Milwaukee.
The defending Calder Cup champion Wolves got goals from Anttoni Honka and Noel Gunler but it wasn’t enough as the Admirals had five different players score to snap Chicago’s two-game winning streak.
“It’s unfortunate because we had a good start,” Wolves forward Brendan Perlini said. “They got a couple and then we had a little bit of fightback but obviously not enough.”
The Wolves opened the scoring for the second consecutive game when Honka notched his third goal of the season early in the first period. Teammate Tuukka Tieksola cruised into the offensive zone and dropped a pass to Honka and the defenseman fired a shot from between the circles that beat Admirals goaltender Yaroslav Askarov to the glove side. Tieksola and Logan Lambdin earned assists on the score.
Midway through the period, Milwaukee answered on a goal by Tim Schaller and in the waning seconds of the first took a 2-1 lead on a power-play score by Kiefer Sherwood.
The Admirals extended the lead to two goals late in the second on Cole Schneider’s score and put the game out of reach midway through the third on a shorthanded goal by Egor Afanasyev.
Gunler’s power-play goal moments 35 seconds later pulled the Wolves to within 4-2. The forward received a pass from Ronan Seeley and went glove side from the high slot for his fourth goal of the season. Seeley and Malte Stromwall had assists.
John Leonard scored into the empty net to seal the deal for the Admirals.
“The good thing is, there are games coming up so we can always get it back,” Perlini said.
Zachary Sawchenko (27 saves) suffered the loss for the Wolves while Askarov (28 saves) earned the win for the Admirals.
The Wolves fell to 8-14-2-0 on the season while Milwaukee improved to 16-9-0-2.
Up next: The Wolves will host the Grand Rapids Griffins on Thursday at Allstate Arena (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.
