Wolves Square Series With 2-1 Victory

Jeremy Welsh's second-period goal stood up as the game-winner as the Chicago Wolves evened their Western Conference Quarterfinals with a 2-1 victory over Utica on Friday night at Allstate Arena.

Defenseman Brent Regner scored a goal and added an assist for the Wolves (1-1) while goaltender Jordan Binnington rejected 30 of 31 shots to earn the win. The scene shifts to Utica for the rest of the best-of-five series with Game 3 at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

"I thought our goalie was the best player on the ice tonight," said Wolves head coach John Anderson. "I thought we did a lot of good clearing. We didn't give them a ton of good cycles in our zone."

"I felt confident and the team was doing a very good job of blocking out and I was able to see the majority of the shots," Binnington said. "In the playoffs, you need that extra compete level and I think our team has that."

The Wolves opened the scoring with Regner's power-play goal 1:10 into the second period. Chicago opened the stanza on the man advantage and worked the puck patiently until Regner authored a blast from the right point that was set up by Magnus Paajarvi and Pat Cannone.

Utica knotted it 1-1 on Hunter Shinkaruk's goal at 10:10 of the second. The Comets launched a counter-attack down the right side and Shinkaruk sneaked in the back door and tapped home a pass from Alexandre Grenier.

The Wolves wasted little time regaining the lead for good with Welsh's goal at 11:52. Jani Hakanpaa wristed a low shot from the right point just as Welsh streaked across the slot for a redirect past Utica goaltender Jacob Markstrom.

Utica removed Markstrom for an extra attacker with 1:25 remaining in regulation, but the Comets managed just two shots as the Wolves kept clearing the puck out of the zone. Markstrom (1-1) notched 20 saves in the loss.

Tickets for the Western Conference Semifinals go on sale at noon Saturday.

--Chicago Wolves