Another in a series looking back at the Wolves’ five league championships.
By Chris Kuc and Danny Karmin
Unlike the Wolves’ first two championships when they rolled through the regular season to establish they were a force with which to be reckoned, the 2002 title winners finished fourth in the West Division with a mediocre record of 37-31-7-5.
“That was the first year we were put together with the Atlanta Thrashers affiliation,” legendary Wolves coach John Anderson said. “Half of it was Atlanta’s players and half was our guys and it was on me to be able to bring the team together. It was a challenge at first.”
Chicago stumbled into the postseason thanks to a four-game losing skid and approached the playoffs with a roster in flux.
“Right near the end of the year, Atlanta called up a bunch of guys so we were missing five or six of our best players,” Anderson said. “We had to navigate through the first couple of rounds through different changes.”
The Wolves, who had 11 players with double-digit goal totals during the regular season, did have their two biggest point producers still around in the playoffs in Rob Brown (29 goals, 54 assists) and Steve Maltais (31, 32).
Chicago’s run to the organization’s first Calder Cup created some memorable moments, including during the first-round series that nearly ended the Wolves’ bid in the early stages.
After dropping Game 1 of the best-of-three series to the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, the teams were skating in overtime in Game 2 when Wolves goaltender Frederic Cassivi made a series-altering save.
“One of their guys had an open net and ‘Freddie’ laid his stick down to stop it and we ended up winning the game in overtime,” said Wendell Young, then Executive Director of Team Relations and current Vice Chairman/Governor of the Wolves. “The Wolves would have been put out of the playoffs had that puck gone in.”
Chicago went on to win in double-overtime and took Game 3 in another close affair to advance to face the Grand Rapids Griffins in the Western Conference quarterfinals.
Things didn’t get any easier as the Wolves dispatched the No. 2-seeded Griffins 3-2 to set up a date with the Syracuse Crunch in the semifinals. That series also went the distance and the Wolves took out the top-seeded Crunch 4-3.
In the conference finals, the rolling Wolves bulldozed their way past the Houston Aeros in five games to set up a Calder Cup Final showdown with the…
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