In the grand scheme of things, the news is the Admirals lost in a shootout to the Rockford IceHogs for the second straight Sunday. The Admirals got a point in the standings, which is certainly better than none…but certainly is stunting their playoff run.
What the 5,838 in attendance today will all remember will be what happened at 10:08 of the 2nd period.
| 2 – RFD Served By , 10:08 – Game misconduct – Coach, (75.5(iii)) 10 min |
| 2 – RFD Flick, 10:08 – Unsportsmanlike conduct, 2 min (PP) |
| 2 – RFD Flick, 10:08 – Fighting, 5 min |
| 2 – RFD Flick, 10:08 – Game misconduct, 10 min |
| 2 – RFD Hutton, 10:08 – Fighting, 5 min |
| 2 – RFD Hutton, 10:08 – Game misconduct, 10 min |
| 2 – RFD Lalonde, 10:08 – Fighting, 5 min |
| 2 – RFD Lalonde, 10:08 – Game misconduct – Leaving penalty bench, (70.4) 10 min |
| 2 – RFD Stanton, 10:08 – Fighting, 5 min |
| 2 – RFD Stanton, 10:08 – Game misconduct, 10 min |
| 2 – MIL Served By , 10:08 – Game misconduct – Coach, (75.5(iii)) 10 min |
| 2 – MIL Foss, 10:08 – Fighting, 5 min |
| 2 – MIL Foss, 10:08 – Game misconduct, 10 min |
| 2 – MIL Latta, 10:08 – Fighting, 5 min |
| 2 – MIL Latta, 10:08 – Game misconduct – Leaving penalty bench, (70.4) 10 min |
| 2 – MIL Smith, 10:08 – Fighting, 5 min |
| 2 – MIL Smith, 10:08 – Game misconduct, 10 min |
| 2 – MIL Stortini, 10:08 – Fighting, 5 min |
| 2 – MIL Stortini, 10:08 – Game misconduct, 10 min |
(Video courtesy of Ted Gruber. Many thanks to you, sir!)
Maybe everyone had been watching the Pens/Flyers game earlier?
Michael Latta and Shawn Lalonde had a bout and went to the box. Then there was a TV timeout (where it was Mark Van Guilder who was at Toner Sales and Service with Roscoe), and the faceoff was going to be at the Rockford blue line. And all four officials somehow didn’t notice that Rob Flick was skating towards the Admiral goaltender.
What was Rob Flick doing there? Great question.
But Flick engaged Smitty and then the benches cleared. Even Latta and Lalonde left the penalty boxes to join the fray.
Here’s Coach Herbers on the incident. We’ll string a few of his quotes together here…
The coaches even yelled at each other from the edge of their benches. Rockford Coach Ted Dent may talk a tough game, but I’m pretty sure he’d regret it if he actually confronted Herbie face to face. 5’11 Dent vs 6’4 Herbers. That might not end well for him….
So the officials elected to send everyone off to their locker rooms to cool their heads, and so they could decide what on earth they were going to do. Players joining altercations from all different directions…from the bench, from the crease, from the penalty box…
So after our mid-period break, the teams returned to hear what the penalties were going to be. The net effect was that the Admirals got a two minute power play, as the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Flick was the only thing that wasn’t evened up on both sides.
Teams played nice….and tired the rest of the way. The IceHogs were playing their third game in three days, and in the third period, it started to show. After some sustained offensive pressure, Mark Van Guilder got the home team on the board with a nice shot after a nice pass from Ryan Flynn. We’ve seen this goal a couple of times before, with Flynn passing the puck from behind the goal-line to Van Guilder in the slot for the bang-bang goal.
The one the Smith did allow earlier in the game before doing his best (insert your favorite Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out character here) impression seemed like a harmless shot from near the right wing boards by Kyle Beach. That’s a save that Smitty needs to make.
Smith did speak with reporters after the game. Truth be told, I’m a big Smitty fan. He usually gives honest, thoughtful, and candid answers when he talks to the media. But I kind of get the feeling he may have been ‘prepped’ a bit before this one. Listen for yourself.
Suspensions? I think Latta may get one for leaving the penalty box to join the fray. Smith? Tough to say. Depends on how badly the league wants to make an example out of the incident. From a roster management standpoint, suspensions would kind of be a big deal. If Kyle Wilson is not ready to go, they may have to sign someone to a PTO….or maybe the Preds can loan us Bourque for a game or two.
But it’s road trip time now. Two huge games in Charlotte during the week. Would be great to sweep them both. Here’s the coach once more.
Admirals Roundtable 
Flick should be suspended! I would give him the rest of the season off, including the playoffs. If Rockford doesn’t make the playoffs, then Flick should get 10 more games off for next season! I haven’t seen something like that in 20 years.
Aside from the fact that Flick’s first name should be changed to dick, this game was another example of more just plain lousy playing. The Ads had more turnovers tonight that National Bakery. The comment was made during the game that they look pretty much like they did back in October, which sums things up nicely. After six months of playing together, this team just has not gotten it together.
At least they will have gone out with a bang.
Good to see the boys stand up for each other, the Icehogs have been talking Sh_t in every game they play. Note: to Ted Dent – Your comments are dumb ( exit the ice in a timely matter after a bench clearing brawl ? What ? ). Ian Herbers is not a guy to be a fool around , he will knock the foolishness out of you real quick .
The team isn’t going to release video?
Really? They don’t want to show almost 5,400 going crazy cheering for their teams? They don’t want to show the Admirals standing up for one of their own and our goalie no less?
First line brawl in 15 some odd years for a Milwaukee team and the only people who will get to see it are the Admirals staff at the company get together…
Rediculous…
This injustice shall be corrected soon, Brian! :)
Thanks to Ted Gruber…
Awesome! The internet and hockeyfans prevail!
Thanks!
Thanks Wolfkeeper!!!!!
I was looking up the rules and in the NHL rules, the first player to leave the penalty box for an altercation receives an automatic 10 game suspension. Hopefully either the AHL rules are different or Latta gets lucky… We can’t afford to lose him to suspension.
Also in the video replay it sure looked like Smith threw the first punch, unless of course the replay did not show the whole story. Sure hope Smith doesn’t get a suspension. I still am uneasy with Engren in net and these last few games are crucial for us.
Good to see the team stick together great video hope to see more great action from the ads
thats why we got pickard on the roster so he could play so we wont be bad i would rather have chet be the starter then engren if smith is out for couple games
js
Chet’s not currently on the Admirals’ roster… in fact Chet tweeted today that he’s heading to Nashville…
What a game to miss! Thanks so much for posting the video-I was dying to see what happened. I know Latta might miss some time for leaving the penalty box but if I recall correctly, so does the first person off the bench. Anyone know who that was? Dupont reached them first quickly followed by Mueller and then literally, the entire team. Were Dupont and Mueller on the ice at the time? So interesting….how is the decision made to go over the boards? Must have been a crazy thing to be a part of!
I wish we could have gotten the two points but I will take one. Really loved our team sticking together and showing a lot of heart.
Suspensions announced…
Rockford center Rob Flick has been suspended three (3) games, Rockford defenseman Shawn Lalonde has been suspended three (3) games, Milwaukee center Michael Latta has been suspended three (3) games and Milwaukee goaltender Jeremy Smith has been suspended one (1) game for their actions. In addition, Rockford head coach Ted Dent, Milwaukee head coach Ian Herbers and both teams have all been fined an undisclosed amount.