Wolves get it together, beat Monsters

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Jordan Schroeder battles for the puck behind the net against the Monsters on Saturday at Allstate Arena. | Wolves

Updated: January 8, 2012 12:04AM

When the Wolves took roll call at the beginning of their game Saturday against the Lake Erie Monsters at Allstate Arena, the offense was noticeably absent. The Wolves managed only two first-period shots.

But the offense woke up with three second-period goals en route to a 3-1 victory.

‘‘We got the job done,’’ right wing Darren Haydar said. ‘‘We’re definitely not happy with the way we won, obviously, but we found a way.’’

The Monsters scored when a rebound off the boards behind the Wolves’ net came right to Evan Brophey, who was left open on the far post. Goalie Matt Climie had no chance to recover.

The Monsters created a tremendous amount of traffic in front of the net from the start of the game, which might have caused the Wolves to play defensively in the first few minutes. The combination of that and the three penalties the Wolves had to kill kept them out of the Monsters’ end for much of the period.

‘‘Our coaches do a good job of preparing us with scouting reports,’’ Climie said. ‘‘Their M.O. is to go to the net and just get a lot of traffic. They’ve got some big bodies, and that’s kind of their game.

‘‘We’ve worked on it a lot the last couple of weeks — just taking sticks and moving bodies — and I feel that’s the difference for us the last couple of weeks.’’

Haydar had points on each of the second-period goals, assisting on the first two and scoring the third at 16:55. Steven Reinprecht broke a 1-1 tie with a power-play goal at 9:26 and assisted on Haydar’s goal.

Haydar was held out of the Wolves’ game Friday in Peoria with an injury that coach Craig MacTavish chose not to disclose.

‘‘Big step for our team to get it to the locker room and turn it around in the second period,’’ MacTavish said. ‘‘It looked a little bit reminiscent of the Charlotte game last Sunday, where we got outplayed and were only down 1-0 but couldn’t turn it around. But we were able to do that tonight, which was a good sign.’’