Abbotsford Heat lose eighth straight game, fall 4-1 to Chicago Wolves

ABBOTSFORD, B.C. - Matt Climie made 28 saves as the Chicago Wolves defeated the Abbotsford Heat 4-1 Sunday in American Hockey League action.

Giving AHL All-Star Jake Allen a night off, Climie stopped all 12 shots in the third period to help the Wolves hang on to the win, and extending his personal streak to 4-0-2.

Alexandre Bolduc, Cody Beach, Dmitrij Jaskin and Tyler Shattock each scored for Chicago (35-18-6), who is on a 12-2-1 run that has them within three points of Grand Rapids for the Midwest Division lead.

Cade Fairchild, Taylor Chorney, and Pat Cannone, fresh off his first career hat trick against the Heat Saturday, picked up two assists apiece.

Brady Lamb, a defenceman turned forward, scored the only goal for Abbotsford (33-21-7), who is now winless in eight games.

Head coach Troy Ward was forced to dress nine defencemen Sunday, with three of them playing as forwards, as his already depleted roster was dealt two more injuries in Saturday night's loss.

Olivier Roy stopped just two of four shots before getting the hook in favour of Aaron Dell, who mopped up with 14 saves.

The Wolves opened the scoring seconds after Climie made a huge save, robbing Evan Trupp after he one-timed a centring feed from Blair Jones. The play went the other way and Bolduc redirected Fairchild's shot from the left circle.

Beach made it 2-0 at the 14-minute mark, deflecting Eric Selleck's point shot and sending Roy to the bench.

Jaskin scored on the first shot Dell faced just a couple minutes later, taking a cross-ice pass from Cannone and roofing it for his 15th of the year.

The Heat began to show life past the halfway mark of the second as Ben Street had a partial breakaway stymied by Climie.

Trupp chipped the puck off the boards right to Lamb in full stride. He split the two defenders and beat Climie glove side at 15:45.

The Wolves squashed any comeback hopes with a power-play goal at 8:38 of the third. Cannone drew Dell far enough out of his net and quickly passed it over to Shattock for a wide open net.