Maltais, Wolves defeat Thunder

     Review-Journal
      The Thunder bottled up league-leading scorer Rob Brown, but couldn't say the same for league-leading goal scorer Steve Maltais.
      Maltais scored twice, including the game-winning goal with nine minutes to go, as the Chicago Wolves salvaged a split of their two-game weekend series with the Thunder by pulling out a hard-fought 3-2 victory Saturday at the Rosemont (Ill.) Horizon.
      Maltais, who has scored many big goals against Las Vegas, leads the International Hockey League with 56 goals.
      The Thunder, which rallied from a 4-1 deficit to defeat the Wolves 6-5 Friday, fell behind just 1:50 into Saturday's game when Tim Bergland whipped his 19th of the year past Las Vegas goaltender Andre Racicot.
      But Thunder center Egor Bashkatov scored twice -- assisted both times by right wing Robert Dome -- to take a 2-1 lead at 3:03 of the second.
      Chicago goalie Wendell Young then stepped up and played brilliantly to stop the Thunder's offense, and Maltais was able to work through the Thunder defense.
      Maltais scored his first goal on the power play at 12:38, taking advantage of a bad clearing pass by Racicot. He then beat Racicot at 10:59 of the third for the game winner.
      Las Vegas had a power play with just under three minutes left and went to a sixth attacker when coach Chris McSorley pulled Racicot to create a 6-on-4 manpower edge. But Young was ready, coming up with 11 of his 35 saves in the final period.
      The power play was the difference. Chicago was 1 of 7 with the man advantage, and Las Vegas was 0 of 8.
      Las Vegas played with four defensemen for the second consecutive night.