Wolves Complete Series Sweep of Stars With 4-1 Win

(Photo Credit: Andy Nietupski/Texas Stars)

Cedar Park, TX - A night after a Texas Stars apathetic showing against the Chicago Wolves, the team followed it up with another listless performance as they fell to the Wolves 4-1 in front of 5,995 at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park Sunday night. Wolves forward Chris Terry continued his scorching of the Stars with a natural hat trick, while former Texas netminder Adam Scheel swallowed up 34 saves as Chicago completed the weekend sweep.

Terry wasted no time putting the Wolves up when he swept up a loose puck near the slot and shoved it past Texas netminder Remi Poirier just 54 seconds into the game. Texas never seemed right after that, despite how early it was in the game.

The Wolves made the task more daunting later in the opening frame when Vasily Ponomarev dished a pass to Terry. The fourteen-year veteran one-timed it past Poirier with 8:12 left in the opening stanza. Chicago took the 2-0 lead to the intermission despite being outshot 11-9 by Texas.

Terry completed his natty with another assist from Ponomarev with 6:17 left in the second, and Chicago went to the second intermission up 3-0, despite the Stars once again outshooting the Wolves for the frame, this by a 15-10 margin.

All-Star rookie Logan Stankoven made things interesting when he took a rebound off of the dasher behind the Wolves net to break up Scheel's shutout for his sixteenth goal of the season with 6:50 left in regulation. However, the tone was set, and the Stars fate already seemed in stone at that point.

Nathan Sucese added an empty net goal with 2:53 left and what hadn't already been an assumed conclusion was solidified.

Between the pipes, Scheel cleaned up 34-of-35 and improved his record to 6-7-3 on the season. The former Star looked All-World as he stopped 56-of-58 on the weekend. Poirier, wasn't bad, but he wasn't good while turning away 24-of-27 as he saw his record drop to 11-6-2 for the season.

With the loss Texas falls to 19-11-2-1 (41 pts.) leaving them in second, four points behind the Admirals. With the victory, Chicago improves to 12-16-3-2 (29 pts.) as they advance into fifth in the Central.

Up next, Texas travels to Milwaukee for a face-to-face with the division leader. While the Stars are 5-5 over their last ten games, Milwaukee is the hottest team in the AHL having won nine of their last ten. The two-game series against the Ads begins on Friday night with a 7:00 p.m. face-off at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena in Wisconsin.

Tonight's lines
McKenzie-Bourque-Stankoven
Blümel-Bäck-Karlström
Stranges-Damiani-Berard
Caamano-Seminoff-McDonald

Pouliot-Kyrou
Grushnikov-Petrovic
Karow-White

Poirier

Injuries, scratches and notes
J. Murray, Reedy (scratch)
Bayreuther (out - ankle)
Wheatcroft (out - lower body)

Tonight's attendance was 5,995.

AHL Gamesheet - Texas v. Chicago - January 14 2024