ROSEMONT, IL — The Chicago Wolves (53-22-2-3) treated Sunday’s game against the Peoria Rivermen (38-33-4-5) kind of like the last day of a school. They just wanted it to be over but made sure to pass all of their final tests. As such, they did and defeated Peoria 5-3 in front of 9,531 onlookers at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont.
The win gave the Wolves the top seed in the American Hockey League (AHL) Western Conference edging out the Toronto Marlies. The Wolves face the Milwaukee Admirals beginning Wednesday, April 16 at 8:30 P.M.
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EST in the best-of-seven Western Division semi-finals. Game two will be Friday night in Rosemont.
“I am very happy we won the conference title,” Wolves rookie goaltender Ondrej Pavelec (30 saves) said. “It’s just good to know we can score when we need to.”
Even if the focus was not completely there for the Wolves Sunday, the Thrashers affiliate, made sure Peoria would not even get close to any scoring chances over the first 40 minutes of play. Peoria, the affiliate of the St. Louis Blues were there in person but were dying to hit the golf course and start the off season as soon as possible.
The Wolves took a 1-0 lead with 5:05 left in the opening period when defenseman Joel Kwiatkowski scored a power play goal off a pass from defenseman Karl Pilar and sent a hard shot up over the left should of Rivermen goaltender Hannu Toivonen and into the net.
Just under four minutes later, AHL MVP Jason Krog scored an un-assisted short-handed goal as the Wolves were killing off a two-man advantage the Rivermen had. He captured a loose puck near the boards by the Wolves bench and began skating up ice. Krog, while fighting off two Rivermen players skated into and sent a wrist shot past Toivonen for the 2-0 with 1:55 remaining in the first period.
“He really is amazing,” Wolves coach John Andersen said. “One of the best plays I have seen all season from him.”
“It has been a long season for us,” Krog said. “It is nice to go into the playoffs on a roll having won our last couple of games. You go through a lot of ups and downs in a season and I’d like to think we are up now.”
Krog said it did not make a difference to him who the Wolves played in the first round because all of the teams in the Western Division all each had over 40 wins.
The Wolves made it 3-0 with 3:04 left in the middle period when the Wolves other scoring machine Brett Sterling scored his 38th goal of the season after taking a pass from Kwiatkowski.
But just as the Wolves were ready to put their game on cruise control, Peoria scored three un-answered goals over a five-minute span courtesy of winger Martin Kariya at the 4:19 mark, Jean-Guy Trudel at the 4:55 mark and center man Nicholas Drazenovic Nicholas with just over ten minutes left in regulation time to tie the score at 3-3.
Wolves’ right winger Daren Haydar would put the Wolves in the lead for good at 4-3 with 1:56 left off a pass from defenseman Nathan Oystrick. | 
