Despite red-hot goal scoring of Jets prospect Fabian Wagner the Moose fall short in Chicago as Wolves take it 4-3

This wasn’t a must-win game (although it is pretty, pretty, pretty close to that) for the Moose as they went into Chicago to take on their fierce divisional rival Wolves. They’ve got four straight (including tonight) against teams in their division and they need to be adding points to the standings bank if they want a sniff of the post-season.

Lineup news:

The Moose signed Jamie Engelbert to a PTO earlier today. The Whitby, Ontario product has spent this season in the ECHL. He would be making his AHL debut. Ben King, who was dealing with something minor before the team left Winnipeg, was out as was Axel Jonsson-Fjallby who missed his second straight game.

Lines & D pairs:

Shaw– Toninato –Lambert
Wagner – JAD – Gengenbach
Suess – Zhilkin – Golder
Liwiski – Englebert– Empey

Sautner– Salomonsson
Phillips – Coghlan
Lundmark – Bauer

DiVincentiis

Notable:

Manitoba couldn’t have asked for a much better start as Ashton Sautner buried this opportunity just 3:34 into the 1st period to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.

Jets prospect Fabian Wagner wasn’t exactly sure what was bringing on his recent goal scoring prowess as he had a goal in each of his previous three games. Make it four straight as the 2022 6th rounder ripped this shot home to make it a 2-0 game for the Moose.

After an ideal start in Chicago which saw the Moose score twice in the first 4:27 of the game, they gave up four straight including a shorthanded goal which had them trailing the Wolves 4-2 after 40 minutes. At the end of the middle frame we almost had the first goalie fight for the Moose since 2018 as Jets goalie prospect Domenic DiVincentiis went after Wolves goalie Dustin Tokarski who was getting into it with a Moose player.

Safe to say that prospect Fabian Wagner is NBA Jam “he’s on fire” as he scored his 5th goal in the last four games to bring the Moose within one. He went absolutely Bardown with this shot. It’s actually incredible what he’s doing the last little bit.

The Moose had scored a power play goal in each of their last four games. After going got 0/4 against the Wolves in this one they were hoping the fifth time would be the charge with 8:44 left in the 3rd. Jets prospect Brad Lambert had a chance off a good faceoff win but no traffic in front made it an easy snag.

With the Moose down a goal Jets prospect Elias Salomonsson activates off the blueline and makes a nice cut towards the Wolves goal as he tried to get the equalizer.

Manitoba captain Dominic Toninato was this close to tying it but the puck just gets past him and the Wolves win it 4-3.

Multi-point game:

Fabian Wagner 2G
Brad Lambert 2A

Highlights:

Player Post-Game:

Up next:

The Moose will travel tomorrow to Iowa where they will play two games against the Wild.