Originally a member of the International Hockey League, the Wolves joined the AHL after the IHL folded in 2001.

The deal was struck after the Canucks and Wolves decided not to renew their existing affiliation agreement and purchased the Peoria Rivermen franchise from the Blues creating the Utica Comets.

[3] However, this was unconfirmed and then denied by the announced potential owner in Kansas City, Lamar Hunt Jr., in a press release from his ECHL team in the area, the Missouri Mavericks,[4] and further denied by AHL commissioner, David Andrews, after the January 2017 Board of Governors meeting.

[9] In the 2018–19 season, the Wolves made the Calder Cup Finals, in which they lost to the Charlotte Checkers in five games.

[14] For the 2020–21 season, the teams' home games were at their training facility at the Triphahn Center in Hoffman Estates due to arena restrictions for fans during the pandemic.

As the Chicago Blackhawks' late owner Bill Wirtz had refused to allow Blackhawks home games to be televised locally, the Wolves were viewed and embraced as an alternative; the Wolves took advantage of this, going so far as to promote themselves with the slogan "We Play Hockey The Old-Fashioned Way: We Actually Win".

After Judd Sirott served as the team's play-by-play announcer for its first 12 seasons, starting in the 2006–07 season broadcast announcers were long-time Blackhawks commentators Pat Foley and Bill Gardner; Foley ultimately returned to the Blackhawks for the 2008–09 season after Bill Wirtz died and his son Rocky took over the team, reversing many of his father's policies, one of which allowed the Blackhawks' games to be aired locally on TV.