Chicago Wolves 3 at GRAND RAPIDS GRIFFINS 5

Oct. 27, 2017

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Matt Lorito returned from a three-game injury absence to register his first career hat trick and lift the Grand Rapids Griffins to a 5-3 come-from-behind victory over the Chicago Wolves on Friday at Van Andel Arena.

After scoring twice in the game’s first 13 minutes, Lorito broke a 3-3 tie with a power play goal 6:07 into the third period, shortly after Evgeny Svechnikov had forged the deadlock with his first goal of the campaign. Dominic Turgeon added an empty-netter with 1:38 remaining for the final margin.

The Griffins (3-4-0-1), who snapped a four-game skid overall and a three-game slide at home, will visit the Rockford IceHogs on Saturday at 7 p.m. EDT.

Lorito made his presence felt just 53 seconds into his return. A tenacious Griffins forecheck resulted in Matt Puempel stealing the puck above the left circle and sliding it to Ben Street, who found Lorito at the circle’s edge for a slap shot that beat Kasimir Kaskisuo. The assist marked the first point for Puempel as a Griffin, in his second game since being acquired from the New York Rangers last Saturday.

The Wolves (2-4-1-0) used their power play to knot the score at the 9:55 mark, as Ivan Barbashev snapped a shot past Jared Coreau’s glove from the high slot.

Lorito potted his second goal with 7:34 left in the frame, accepting a giveaway by Scooter Vaughan in the left circle and quickly sending a writer into the far corner of Kaskisuo’s cage.

Longtime Wolves forward Brett Sterling made it a 2-2 contest midway through the second period, taking a rink-wide pass from Barbashev as he burst down the left side and launching a shot from the circle that found the back of the net at 10:48. Minutes later, back-to-back Grand Rapids penalties gifted Chicago nearly two full minutes of 5-on-3 power play time, and a former Griffin made his old team pay. Teemu Pulkkinen, an AHL First Team All-Star for the Griffins in 2014-15, blasted home a one-timer from the left circle at 13:03 to give the Wolves their only lead of the night.

Chicago returned the power play favor as the period wound down, incurring consecutive penalties to give the Griffins 1:44 of a two-man advantage, with all but two seconds of it carrying over to the third period’s fresh ice. Grand Rapids was unable to capitalize but ultimately tied the game shortly after Chicago returned to full strength, with Puempel feeding Svechnikov for a redirection on the doorstep at 2:16.

Lorito notched goal number three with 13:53 remaining. He found a rebound just outside the crease and slipped a shot through traffic for Grand Rapids’ first regular season hat trick in more than a year, since Anthony Mantha did the deed at Iowa on Oct. 18, 2016.

Grand Rapids, which defeated the 2016-17 Central Division champion Wolves 4-1 in last spring’s division finals on the way to winning the Calder Cup, shut down Chicago the rest of the way, improving to 15-3-1-0 in the regular season series since the start of 2015-16. The visitors’ fate was sealed in the final minutes with Kaskisuo on the bench for an extra attacher, as Turgeon blocked a Pulkkinen slap shot in the high slot, quickly located the loose puck and scooped a backhand the length of the ice into the vacated net.

Coreau finished with 33 saves to improve to 3-1-1 on the season, while Kaskisuo stopped 36 of 40 in the loss.

Notes: Grand Rapids' five goals equaled the output from its four-game losing streak...Chicago went 2-for-4 on the power play. Grand Rapids was 1-for-5…Including Mitch Callahan’s effort in Game 4 of their playoff series in May, a Griffin has netted a hat trick in two of the team’s last three games against the Wolves…The Griffins recalled defenseman Patrick McCarron from the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye after the game. The rookie, who registered an assist in his one-game debut with Grand Rapids at the end of last season, had one goal in five games for the Walleye since being assigned on Oct. 10.

Three Stars: 1. GR Lorito (three goals); 2. GR Puempel (two assists); 3. CHI Barbashev (power play goal, assist)