As great as it felt at the Bradley Center Saturday night when the Admirals shutout Chicago 6-0, the Wolves got their revenge Wednesday night, dropping the Admirals 5-2 in Rosemont.
This also clinched the Amtrak Rivalry trophy for the Wolves again.
Turning point of the game? Probably the third Chicago goal. Trailing 2-1 entering the third period, the Admirals started the final frame with 1:35 of power play time, but could not “Fury The Fury”. And then 8 seconds after the penalty expired, Anton Rodin scored his second goal of the game to extend the Chicago lead — a goal that went off of Jeremy Smith’s glove and into the net.
Still trailing by two in the waning minutes of the game, two empty net goals sandwiched a Kevin Henderson jam into the net with 1:55 left.
Taylor Beck opened the scoring with a power play goal 9:48 into the game that went off the right arm of Chicago goalie Eddie Lack, bounced down to the ice and then over the line. Jordan Schroeder tied it around 6 minutes later. But then the Wolves scored with less than a minute left in the period, as a pass from Roden bounced off of a back-checking Kevin Henderson, and past Smitty.
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NOTES:
– Kevin Henderson, Ben Ryan, and Jeff Foss all suited up tonight…meaning that Michael Latta, Brodie Dupont, and Scott Valentine were all banged up. Ryan, who played very well against Chicago on Saturday night, was involved in the play that Henderson scored on late in the game, but also took stick infraction penalties at 11:28 and 14:02 of the second period. Fortunately, the PK for Milwaukee was strong, as they killed off all three Wolf power plays.
– Peoria also won….they came from behind to top 1st place Oklahoma City 4-3 in overtime. Down 3-0 with two minutes left to go in the second period, the Rivermen scored three power play goals, including a power play marker from new-guy Patrick O’Sullivan in overtime. So both the Rivermen and Wolves extend their lead in the division standings. Not ideal.
– So now it’s back to the drawing board to try and figure out how to beat the IceHogs in a home-and-home series this weekend. 2-4-0-1 is Milwaukee’s current record against Rockford. We sweep, then that record looks better. They sweep, they’re a point behind us in the standings. Yikes.
So Roundtable……are these “must win” games this weekend? Are all games “must win” at this point? Is “must win” an overused sports cliche? Why do you think the Admirals have such a hard time with Rockford? Milwaukee is one of only three teams the IceHogs have a winning record against (5-1-0-1)….the others being Grand Rapids (3-0-0-1), and Houston (1-0).
Admirals Roundtable 
With 58 games in hand, that leaves 18 more to play. If they win all 18 of them, we end up with 100 points on the season. It’s pretty safe to say that that isn’t going to happen, based upon the record so far this year.
‘Must win’ games going forward? Ummm, we started having ‘must win’ games back in October. So, yes, I’ll vote for overused.
One thing I noticed about playing Rockford is their ability to take neutral zone play out of the equation when on offense. They’ve managed to play the third dimension pretty well by lobbing the puck over the zone. It appears that their coaching staff has identified the neutral zone as a problem area, and the easiest way to deal with that is to just fly over it.
Saturday is going to be an ugly game, the caliber of play notwithstanding. The girl scout jerseys are a sight to behold. And then locked away forever.
Still baffled by this teams inconsistency. If they can’t beat a team below them yet again this weekend kiss the season goodbye
Milwaukee has had its fair share of troubles at Allstate over the years and after this past weekend’s beat-down I didn’t see last night’s result as much of a surprise. The killer is that Milwaukee did not get even a single point.
Though this weekend’s series is not “must-win” time, if Milwaukee fails to register at least three out of four points, the hill to climb becomes all that much larger.
To add to that if Milwaukee again struggles this weekend against the Ice Hogs and ends up missing the playoffs, it will be easy to point to the Admirals record versus Rockford as the reason why. Winning two out of seven games against a division rival is absolutely unacceptable (four out of nine sounds a lot better). Would help if Milwaukee could figure out Carter Hutton: https://admiralsroundtable.com/2012/03/05/the-carter-hutton-factor/
The big problem over the last week or so is many of the teams above us are playing each other and taking the game to OT. We’re losing even more ground due to two teams playing one another and each picks up at least a point. :( I would say these games are must-win. We can’t give up points to conference opponents any more. There’s just not enough time and everyone is too bunched up together.
Me thinks this year is lost.