ROSEMONT, Ill.—After a scoreless first period, the Chicago Wolves reeled off four second-period goals and cruised to a 6-2 victory over Rochester on Friday night to run their point streak at Allstate Arena to 16 games.
Forwards Shane Harper scored two goals while Alexander Bolduc, Christian Hanson, Sebastian Wannstrom and Mark Cundari added tallies for the Wolves (32-17-4-2), who have gone 14-0-2-0 at home since Dec. 8. Jake Allen posted 22 saves to pick up his league-leading 24th victory.
“I think we’ve played well probably since the middle of December,” said Wolves head coach John Anderson. “Tonight, we had an average first period and then we started to come on. They took a lot of penalties. They can’t take five or six penalties in a period and expect to come out on top.”
Rochester (28-19-3-4) opened the scoring with Luke Adam’s power-play goal at 2:22 of the second period. Phil Varone fired a wrist shot from the left circle that Allen deflected to the right circle, but Adam was right there to blast the rebound into the open net.
The Wolves answered just 1 minute, 18 seconds later in a similar fashion. Defenseman Brent Regner blistered a slap shot from the left point that banged off the glass and went into the right circle, where Harper was waiting to beat Rochester goaltender Matt Hackett at 3:40.
Chicago took a 2-1 lead on Bolduc’s breakaway at 5:49 of the second. Adam Cracknell fed the puck down the ice to Bolduc, who gunned his shot over Hackett’s glove into the top corner for a short-handed goal.
Hanson pushed the Wolves’ margin to 3-1 at 11:14 when he chased down a Rochester defenseman, forced him to turn over the puck, and fired a slap shot for the unassisted goal.
The Americans pulled within one when Kevin Porter whacked a puck out of mid-air and beat Allen at 13:58.
The Wolves regained their two-goal advantage during a 5-on-3 situation as Keith Aucoin set up Cundari for a quick wrister from the right circle at 16:52. Wannstrom made it 5-2 at 6:24 of the third when Regner threaded the needle with a two-line pass that set him up for a breakaway.
Harper notched his first two-goal game since Nov. 1 when Michael Davies controlled the puck below the goal line and backhanded a pass into the slot. Harper claimed the puck and flipped it home.
Allen (24-12-2) won for the seventh time in his last eight decisions. Hackett (13-15-2) stopped 31 of 37 shots in the loss.
Chicago Wolves
