MILWAUKEE—The Chicago Wolves appear to have started to turn things around.
Cole Schneider had a goal and an assist while Peter Abbandonato, Max Comtois, Vasily Ponomarev and Isaac Ratcliffe each scored to lift the Wolves to a 5-1 victory over the Admirals on Saturday night in Milwaukee.
Matt Donovan chipped in two assists and Keith Kinkaid was strong in goal as the Wolves won for the second time in their last three games.
“From the first shift we were on it,” Comtois said. “It’s exactly the kind of game we want to play. We want to be a pain to play against. We were good on the forecheck. We talked about getting out of our zone and playing good defensively and limiting time and space and for the most part we did a really good job of that.”
The Wolves jumped to a lead early in the opening period when Abbandonato’s shot from the point eluded Admirals goaltender Yaroslav Askarov. Donovan earned an assist on Abbandonato’s first goal of the season.
Late in the first, Mark Jankowski scored to pull Milwaukee even, but the Wolves weren’t done in the period.
With 13.1 seconds remaining in stanza, Schneider notched his second goal of the season to put Chicago out in front 2-1. The forward redirected a shot from Tyson Feist from the top of the right circle that bounded past Askarov. In addition to Feist, Cavan Fitzgerlad picked up an assist on the score.
Comtois extended the Wolves’ lead to 3-1 midway through the second. The forward broke into the Admirals zone on a two-on-one with Dominic Franco and fired a shot from the left dot that sailed by Askarov to the stick side. The unassisted goal was Comtois’ third of the season—with the scores coming in three consecutive games.
“I was trying to look for the pass all the way and it wasn’t there so I just took the shot,” Comtois said. “You never know but that one went in so I was pretty happy.”
The Wolves kept coming in the second and took a 4-1 advantage while on the power play. Ponomarev pounced on a puck in the slot and banged home his second goal of the season, assisted by Chris Terry and Donovan.
In the waning moments of the third, Ratcliffe capped the scoring when he solved Askarov from in close for the forward’s fourth goal of the season.
Kinkaid (21 saves) earned the win in goal for the Wolves while Askarov (20 saves) suffered the loss for the Admirals.
“We got a huge win,” Comtois said. “Hopefully, this starts something for us. We’re a pretty proud group and the start of the season wasn’t at all what we wanted. There were a lot of things we could have done better. It starts with the older guys—we have to be the ones to get the game going and set the example.”
The Wolves improved to 3-7-1-1 on the season while Milwaukee fell to 6-6-0-0.
Next up: The Wolves host the Admirals on Sunday (3 p.m.) at Allstate Arena.
For information on Wolves ticket plans for the 2023-24 season—everything from single-game tickets to Flex Packs to group outings—visit chicagowolves.com or call 1-800-THE-WOLVES.
