(Photo credit: Scott Paulus)

The Admirals have confirmed that restricted free agent forward Ryan Thang will be playing in Germany next season.

Thang debuted with the Admirals after his Notre Dame season ended in 2010.  He earned high praise from Coach Lane Lambert early on, and played significant minutes down the stretch and in the 2010 Calder Cup Playoffs.

Thanger had a great shot, and scored some big time goals over his two-plus seasons in Milwaukee.  My favorite Thang moment was probably in the 2011 Calder Cup playoffs.  In game 5 of the first round series against the Texas Stars, Thang scored at 16:29 of overtime to give the Admirals a 3-2 series lead, with the series then heading back to Milwaukee.  He had an open shooting lane on a 3-on-2 rush, and he shot a laser from the right circle that just flat-out beat the goalie.  That was also that game that Gabriel Bourque scored with 4.4 second left in the third to force the overtime….  That game was easily one of my top 3 moments since I started covering the team, if not #1 itself.  An amazing night in Austin.

So we’ll wish Ryan Thang well on his adventures overseas.  And I guess we’ll have to officially retire the FM 102/1 Shake Your Thang cam during the TV timeouts…