Steve Maltais scored twice and Wendell Young captured his 12th consecutive victory in net as the Wolves fought off a late rally to defeat the Manitoba Moose 5-4 Sunday at Winnipeg Arena.
The Wolves (24-7-2) have won four in a row and 18 of 22. They head into a four-day holiday break atop the International Hockey League with 50 points, six ahead of Utah (20-9-4) for the league lead and 15 ahead of Milwaukee (17-14-1) in the Midwest Division.
Maltais, who has a team-leading 19 goals, said he couldn’t help but think about being back on track for his fourth straight 50-goal season.
“I’d like to say it’s not on my mind, but it is,” said Maltais, bidding to match Ft. Wayne’s Barry Scully from 1979-83 as the only players in IHL history with four straight 50-goal seasons. “At Christmas, I think 19 is the most I’ve had.”
Maltais said the team will be thinking about postseason play over the holidays.
“We’ve got a lot of leaders in that dressing room who want to win and they want to win right now, not two or three years down the road,” said Maltais, who has been with the Wolves since the team’s inception in 1994. “All of a sudden, we’ve got a lot of scouts coming out to the games to see why we’re playing so well, and that’s something we haven’t had.”
Among the leaders is Young, who leads the IHL with 19 wins and is 15-0-1 in his last 16 starts.
The Wolves, 15-0-1 when they lead after two periods, held off a Manitoba rally that began with the Moose trailing 4-1 early in the third period. In the final 33 seconds, the Wolves skated four against six after Marc Potvin was whistled for holding and Manitoba goaltender Fred Brathwaite had been pulled for the extra attacker.
