By Tim Campbell

ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Kind of like dipping a toe into shark-infested waters, the Manitoba Moose had a preview of what awaits them over the final 30 games on the AHL season.

Game No. 50 Sunday at Allstate Arena was their first of four this season against the conference-leading Chicago Wolves, who have scored the most goals in the league. There are also seven more contests scheduled against the North Division-leading Toronto Marlies.

Manitoba's first second-half foray against those two elite teams produced no goals and a 2-0 defeat before 8,805 fans.

Is it an ominous sign of what's to come over the final 30 games or a moral victory that the Moose, without seven regulars due to NHL call-ups or injuries, don't appear to be completely mismatched against the Wolves?

"We made one mistake," Moose coach Scott Arniel said, referring to Bryan Little's first-period goal straight from a faceoff. There, the Moose allowed two Wolves to go to the net and they devoured the rebound allowed by goalie Drew MacIntyre off Brian Fahey's hard point shot.

"We generated some offence but we didn't generate quite enough," Arniel continued. "We did it in spurts and we didn't do a good job of getting to the net or have continuous pressure. We did get some chances but the ones we got, their goalie was there to meet the challenge."

The goalie was one-time Moose call-up Robert Gherson, who stopped 21 shots.

Chicago had only 26 of its own, so it was by no means a run-and-gun blowout, but the Wolves were clearly the superior team when it came to anticipation. After all you, don't have 188 goals on good guessing or luck.

The Wolves, too, possess one of the elements the Moose so clearly lack, that of a savvy, veteran, game-controlling defenceman in Joel Kwiatkowski.

All of that said, the result was in jeopardy until Krog's goal at 18:36 of the third and that ended Manitoba's modest three-game winning streak fashioned on the earlier legs of this road trip.

"At the start of the trip, if you'd have told me we'd get three of the four, I'd certainly have been happy with that," Arniel said. "But the greedy side of myself and the team is that we could very well have been four-for-four."

The Moose, now 26-20-2-2 and still in second spot in the North, return home for four games, including two next weekend against Toronto.

"It's disappointing we didn't get the win today but we did a lot of things well system-wise and team-wise, that we have to carry over when we go home," said forward Rick Rypien. "Before we left, we didn't get the wins we wanted so it was good to get on the road and get on a little streak."

Rypien said that his team did not give the Wolves too much respect.

"I don't think so because we did a pretty good job of shutting them down," he said. "They had the empty-net goal and bad goal off a faceoff in the first."

Of course, the 35-13-1-0 Wolves were playing a third straight day, while the Moose had Saturday off, and that might have had a little to do with Manitoba's increasing pressure as the third period wore on. That, and Chicago trying to get its 1-0 lead to the bank.

"They might have been protecting a little, there might have been some fatigue and it was a situation as well that we were waiting since the first period to get a power play and we didn't get one until (90 seconds) to go," Arniel said.