The 2010 Milwaukee Admirals High School Showdown will be host for the fifth year to a group of top teams in Wisconsin high school hockey. The tournament has produced three of the last five WIAA state champions and once again appears to be a key to the top teams’ seasons. The holiday tournament will run from December 27-29.
The teams in the holiday showdown are all from southeastern Wisconsin and consist of Cedarburg, Germantown, Kenosha, Mequon Homestead, University School of Milwaukee, Marquette University High School, Whitefish Bay/Nicolet/Shorewood and Hartland Arrowhead.
University School is the defending Admirals Showdown Champion and used its success in the tournament to springboard their run to the WIAA State Championship. Last year’s champion Wildcats won their first round game 2-1 in a shootout against Marquette. In the semi-finals they defeated Cedarburg 3-2, and would knock out Arrowhead 4-2 in the finals.
This year Marquette High enters the tournament as the highest ranked team in the Wisconsin High School Power Rankings and are currently ranked #4 in the state. Marquette will face Germantown in the first round. University School faces Kenosha, Homestead takes on Cedarburg, and Arrowhead matches up against WNS.
Each team is guaranteed at least one game at the Bradley Center and is the highlight of some the teams seasons.
The Admirals finished their ten game road trip with a win Sunday afternoon in San Antonio. The three week trek ended with a 5-3 victory over the West Division leading San Antonio Rampage. Milwaukee finishes the four state journey with a 5-3-0-2 record leaving them with a 11-6-1-4 record overall, good enough for 4th in the West Division and four points out of first.
Chris Mueller finally snapped a nine game power play drought when he scored at 15:54 of the first period of Sunday’s game. Milwaukee had gone 0-32 in the first nine games of the road trip until they scored thrice on the PP Sunday.
Linus Klasen scored on the PP at 16:55 of the third period on for the GWG. Klasen had an adventurous road trip with his new team and coach but still leads the team with ten goals on the season.
Jeremy Smith collected his second victory of the season Sunday turning away 33 shots.
The Admirals quest for the third goal remains after falling 3-2 in a shootout to Rockford Wednesday night. Milwaukee led the game 2-0 entering the third period and had outplayed the IceHogs through the first two periods, but a lazy penalty would lead to a goal, and a late IceHog goal forced overtime. With momentum, the IceHogs had the better chances in overtime but didn’t capitalize. But in the shootout Rockford scored on four of five chances and won the game.
The beginning of the end started with a Grant Lewis holding penalty in the third; on the ensuing power play Rockford held the puck in the zone and Kyle Beach took advantage of a loose rebound. Ivan Vishnevskiy took a slap shot from the point that rebounded off of Mark Dekanich to forward Ben Smith. He only got a piece of the puck, but Beach was able to bury it.
Here’s coach Lambert on the turning point…..
After icing the puck with less than 1:30 left in the third, Milwaukee called timeout to rest the players and discuss the following sequence. What happened next was not the outcome they were looking for. Rockford won the draw clean, and Ivan Vishnevsky made a pass to the side boards. Ben Smith then passed through two Admirals (Begin and Palin) to the backdoor and Jeffe Taffe tapped in the game tying goal with 1:09 left in the third.
Lambert’s take on the faceoff and goal…..
In overtime the Ads looked stunned; Milwaukee turnovers lead to a couple of Rockford chances but Dekanich stood tall. However, the shootout wouldn’t go as well…
Rockford scored on four of five chances with Taffe notching the winning goal in a shooter friendly shootout. Milwaukee scored on three of their chances but still fell short.
It wasn’t all gloom and doom for Milwaukee, Jamie Lundmark notched the first tally at 13:32 of the first taking advantage of a Teemu Laakso shot that went just wide of the net. It appeared that Toivonen and the Rockford defense hesitated and Lundmark had a wide open net. It was Lundmark’s third goal of the season, both Laakso and Roman Josi assisted on the goal.
Aaron Johnson scored his first goal of the season snapping a rebound past Toivonen giving the Admirals a 2-0 lead. Linus Klasen started the play moving from inside the blue line to the top of circle were he found Andreas Thurresson. Thurresson got a shot that Toivonen misplayed and the puck bounced to the slot and sat waiting for somebody to shoot.
Dekanich finished the game with 25 saves and Toivonen stopped 24 shots. The Ads play their second of only three November home games Friday against Peoria.
Talking Points…..
What did you think of Hugh Jessiman in a Rockford uniform?
Coach Lambert left the post-game presser with “you can edit that out” after recapping tonights game. How disappointing was it to only get one point out of tonight’s game? (“you can edit that out” was PG-13 language)
The Admirals almost fought back from a four goal deficit but fell a goal shy, losing 4-3 to the Wolves in Chicago. The Ads have now lost to the Wolves three different ways with a loss in regulation, overtime and a shootout.
(Video highlights in the comments section of this post)
Following the loss, coach Lane Lambert said they would be “assessing” Chet Pickard’s performance over the next couple of days, but he didn’t want to discuss Pickard’s future from there. Pickard allowed three goals in less than four minutes in the second period, two of which were unacceptable. When you add in that he has now lost thirteen straight games (counting the 09-10 season) the coming days may include a trip to Cincinnati for Chet.
Chicago’s Fredrik Pettersson notched the only goal in the first period for either team, scoring five-hole at 5:41 of the first. The Ads weren’t as sharp as in the previous games but still had their share of opportunities.
However, that fight disappeared quickly when Jared Ross beat Pickard glove side with a slapshot from above the top of the circle at 13:59 of the second. The Wolves from that point through the end of the second period controlled play. Darren Haydar scored at 15:33 and Andre Deveaux beat Pickard at 17:48 to give the Wolves a 4-0 lead entering the third.
Coach Lambert talks about how deflating the second period was…….
Lambert said the team heard the message loud and clear during the second intermission and responded quickly. Linus Klasen continued his hot start to season scoring top shelf on the power play just 52 seconds into the third period. The snap shot that rang off both posts before crossing the goal line was assisted by Blake Geoffrion and Jonathon Blum.
Less then three minutes later the Ads caught a break when Gabriel Bourque took advantage of Wolves goaltender Edward Pasquale misplaying the puck behind his net. Bourque was able to wrap around the vacated net to score and make a game out of it at 3:22 of the third.
Andreas Thuresson’s goal at 16:02 brought the Ads one step closer when he received a Blake Geoffrion pass in the slot and one-timed his shot past Pasquale. The play was made with Klasen hustling to beat out a close icing call, and Klasen then moved the puck to Geoffrion who found Thuresson.
The Ads continued to pressure the Wolves but ended up on the wrong side of a interference call with 1:51 left in the third. Steve Begin, in his first game with Milwaukee, cut through the offensive slot and ran over a Wolf player. Here’s Lamberts opinion on the call……
With the penalty the Ads had a couple of shots but no serious chances with the goalie pulled but still playing 5 on 5.
Pickard finished the game with 31 saves and Pasquale turned away 28.
All in all the Ads took two out of three games over the weekend and made a comeback in a game that they could have rolled over in. Here’s coach’s take on the weekend…..
Milwaukee started their three games in three days on the positive side with a 3-2 victory over Grand Rapids. It wasn’t a pretty game for either side but the Ads defense and goal-tending stepped up and earned two points on the road
Dekanich played well in his first game since being recalled to the Ads and made crucial saves in the closing minutes. Dekanich ended the night with 24 saves.
Linus Klasen scored the game winner for the Ads after a sloppy first period.
The Ads led after the first period 2-1 and carried that lead into the third. Three minutes into the third Griffins Jan Mursak scored a shorthanded breakaway goal off of a Blum mistake.
Couple things that stand out from this game:
Ads finally able to score that key third goal.
Dekanich strong in return.
Klasen a goal scorer but how will the rest of his game develop as the season progresses?
Milwaukee heads back home tomorrow to face the Abbotsford Heat at 7 p.m.
As mentioned earlier Mark Dekanich has officially been recalled to Nashville. Jeremy Smith will replace Dekanich on the Ads. Smith last year was the co-playoff MVP for the Cincinnati Cyclones ECHL championship run.
Dekanich recall comes with Pekka Rinne battling injury and back-to-back Nashville games Wednesday and Thursday.
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