The Milwaukee Admirals are playoff bound.
Controlling their own destiny, the Admirals put up a four-spot in the third period, on their way to a 6-1 win over the visiting Charlotte Checkers on Sunday evening.
As a result, the Admirals clinched the #5 spot in the conference, and will face-off against the Abbotsford Heat in the best-of-five first round of the Calder Cup playoffs. The series will open in Milwaukee Friday and Sunday, with games three through five in Abbotsford next week.
Coach Herbers isn’t surprised that this team didn’t quit.
Both Milwaukee and Charlotte were playing their third game in three days, and went with the same goaltender for the third time in three days.
Ryan Thang opened the scoring with a power play goal, putting in a rebound of a shot from Kyle Wilson.
Brodie Dupont scored what would eventually be the game winning goal at 6:35 of the second period, skating into the zone on the left wing and firing a shot from the near circle that flat out beat Justin Peters.
Coach Herbers says it was huge to get that two-goal lead.
The Checkers got one back with a power play goal from Jerome Samson, who had a shot from a sharp angle on the far side that beat Smith. It was such a sharp angle, we thought it hit the side of the net, but no, the red light went off.
Thang scored his second of the gmae with somewhat of a mirror image of Dupont’s goal. After an icing call was waived off by the linesman, Scott Valentine fed a long pass to Thang on the right wing. He skated into the zone, and his shot from the right wheel just flat out beat Peters.
Here’s Thang on the play.
I think that was really the back-breaker for the Checkers in this game. Two out of those three Admiral goals were shots from far out that didn’t have any screens or real distractions. Yes they were good shots. But those are the kinds of saves that he needs to make.
Ryan Flynn got a goal about five minutes later, after his shot went in off of Checker D-man Rasmus Rissanen. Jani Lajunen had an empty net goal nine seconds after the Checkers pulled Peters. And then Taylor Beck banged home a power play goal with 1:32 to play to complete the scoring.
NOTES:
– Interesting scrum in the first period that sent three Admirals to the box and two Checkers to the box….and somehow, the Admirals got to go from a 5-4 power play to a 5-3 power play? Mark Lemelin was the referee that called the penalties, and we’re not sure why there wasn’t more protest from the Checker bench. Durno was assessed four minutes, but still, I’m pretty sure the Ads shouldn’t have had an extra power play there.
– Victor Bartley left the game after that first period scrum. Day-to-day is the official word. Hopefully he’ll be ready to go next Friday, because he’s a very important piece of the puzzle for this team.
– Thang opened the season with a pair of goals in Peoria, and closed the regular season with another two goals tonight. Thang has been playing well recently, and Coach says that he’s going to need to keep that going.
QUESTIONS:
– Do you like the match-up against Abbotsford?
– Tell the truth…did you write this team off in early March?
– What was your regular season highlight?
Admirals Roundtable 
Didn’t think this team had a chance to make the playoffs. Now they are 5th in the conference!?!?!
If they play like they have been they have a chance. I think the series will be a close one and probably go the distance.
Did the Admirals do end of the year awards?
Win Friday and Sunday and Abby has their back against the wall!
I thought the season was over when the Ads lost 2 in a row to Rockford on March 10 and 11.
Highlight of the season was the brawl with Rockford. The Hogs lit a powderkeg of butt kicking!
Sorry, I forgot. Three wins and a SO loss against the Heat. Yeah, I will take the Ads in 4 games.
You can’t worry who you play in the playoffs. While it looked grim a few weeks ago, it wasn’t like they were that far behind for the 8th spot and I think at one point they weren’t even that far out of first. What was kind of disconcerting was some ot the close games they lost, especially when they had to depend on another team to lose.
Clinched. Unclenched.
The highlight of the season was the brawl, because it appears to have finally brought these guys together as a team. Maybe a good barfight would be in order before Friday’s game. :-)
If the team can keep up the good karma they’ve got going, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t have a good showing in the playoffs. I’ll admit readily that I was a naysayer over the past couple of months, but the team managed to defy a lot of people’s thinking and made it in.
Go Ads!!
Am I missing something? why is Milwaukee getting home ice advantage as a 5 seed? With this being a best of 5 serious, Abbotsford could potentially only have 1 home game, not complaining, just curious.
I meant series… not serious…I need to stop commenting from my phone, my chubby little fingers don’t mesh well with the keyboard…
Anyways, I see that’s how all the playoff series are going, the higher seeded team is getting the first 2 at home, and the the next 3 at the lower seeded teams… I understand it’s to save travel expenses, but damn… There’s a good chance for a lot of crappier teams to go 2-0 right off the bat and put a lot of good teams against a wall right away. I’d be pretty ticked if I were Abottsford, but I’m not, so oh well…
I didn’t write the team off but I do admit that I came to a realization that I wouldn’t be upset if we didn’t make it. I really didn’t think we had much of a chance, but in the end all the pieces fell into place.
The 2-3 series is completely dumb. If the AHL wants to be a professional league, bite the bullet and force your teams to spend some money on travel… do a 2-2-1 series and if teams can’t afford an extra plane trip, perhaps they shouldn’t be in the league.
With the best of five series….the higher seed gets to choose whether they would rather have home ice advantage, or have the first two games at home. In this case, Abbotsford elected to have games 3-5 at home.
After extending the season a week (to help avoid some player wear and tear and get rid of those pesky 4 games in 5 days sets), they are doing the best of five series in the first round to get them back on schedule so we’re not playing hockey in July.
If the teams were regional, it’d be the regular 2-2-1.
If we were on a 2-2-1 series with Abbotsford and it went 5 games….that may be upwards of a $36k bullet that they’d have to bite on airfare alone making two trips to BC. I think this is the league trying to do western teams a favor here. So I appreciate that part…..but I wish it was a best of 7….hockey should always be best of 7.
IMO, if the cost to fly out to BC is that much of a burden, then the league should never have approved a team there. I realize this is the minor leagues and teams are operating on tight budgets, but this is the playoffs. [the league should] Get it right!
And I agree Ryan, best of 7 is the only proper way to go!
Though I was unable to watch today’s game in person, I sure enjoyed the webcast. Just an incredible turn of events to end the season for the Admirals, which return to the playoffs for the tenth straight year.
Yes, on March 20 I wrote Milwaukee off as not making the playoffs (https://admiralsroundtable.com/2012/03/20/handicapping-ahls-western-conference-playoff-race/). I also predicted Peoria and Charlotte would get in, along with Houston comfortably, with San Antonio out.
I also predicted Pittsburgh would win the Stanley Cup, and Michigan would win the NCAA championship (in my defense over BC in the finals).
I will however give it one more shot on Tuesday with a full analysis of Milwaukee’s first round series with Abbotsford. Just to tease, I have one team winning in four games.
And just in case you think I am completely nuts, I have one solid counter punch. Back on March 14 I said 87 points would get Milwaukee in (https://admiralsroundtable.com/2012/03/14/more-on-the-post-rockford-playoff-fallout/). Thanks to Sunday’s win, the Admirals finished with 87 points, taking 23 of 32 possible points after the home-and-home sweep by Rockford.
Amazing how terribly Milwaukee played against Rockford this season, yet still made the playoffs. Certainly I would have pointed to the Admirals’ games against the Ice Hogs as the culprit if Milwaukee fell short. Strangely, Charlotte can now do the same thing with Milwaukee, losing three critical games in regulation to the Admirals in the last two weeks. Flip the results around of just one of those three games and its the Checkers in and Milwaukee out.
Ads got hot just in time. What a way to end the season. I certainly hope they can keep it going. I swear behind Smith & Mueller, Rob Flick is our team MVP. His foolishness seemed to strike a match and light a fire under our team that brought them all together. I admit I was very, very nervous before the game. I thought we might come out and buckle under the pressure and have to rely on the other teams to squander their opportunities. Good for the boys for proving me wrong.
Go Ads!!
Highlight for the last 5 years was the line brawl let alone this year. Not only because the last time one happened was 15 plus years ago, but for what it did for this team. It lit a fire that nothing else could at the right time for the stretch.
Abbotsford is like a dream seeding for the boys. Hell, any seeding that isn’t Rockford is good. Am I right? Let Rosemont er… Chicago get beat up a bit playing someone else while we cut some teeth on the Flames with the first two games of the series at home no less.
Did I write this team off? The loss at home against Rockford on April 1. I felt we won the battle, but not the war. Rockford I believe was tied or just a point behind at the time and we were scuffling and out of the top eight.
Thank you Hogs for lighting that fire.
Just what we needed.
…Last question… You mentioned the Ads shouldn’t have had the 5 on 3PP, so did the writer at chasingcheckers.com. I just want to know why that is? MKE was on the power play already at that point. 2 mke players were sent to the box, each with a 2-minute minor, while Charlotte also had two players obtain penalties, two of which were coincidentals and would have resulted in the same 5 on 4 that was already occurring, but since the one player was assessed a double minor, a 4th player had to sit in the box, so why wouldn’t MKE get the 5 on 3?
So in all, Charlotte had four players in the box, 1 for the original penalty, two for the scrum, and one serving two minutes of the double minor. So if it remained 5 on 4 and MKE scored right away, the original penalty is over and MKE is skating 5 on 5 even though there are 3 guys still in charlotte’s box, one of which serving a regular 2 minute-minor penalty who would have been released upon another MKE goal, or immediately at the expiration of the 2 minutes, resulting in Charlotte having a 6th skater….right? or am i way off on this? If nothing else, me and the ref are on the same train of thought, and it’s nice to know even if I’m wrong, I could still make it as an AHL official!
Did I write the team off? After the back to back losses to the icehogs I pretty much did based on how we had played all year I didn’t feel they had it in them to do what they have done. The brawl lit a fire under them for the final road trip. My highlight or turning point would be the 2 straight wins vs the checkers to begin the road trip beating the teams ahead of us and not giving away points to many of them really put them in position to get things done and control their own fate. The season finale was great always love a good ol’ fashioned as whoopin’ of another team, but I did feel for those checkers players after the final 3 goals went in, they looked deflated and defeated. And it made me think, “hell if smith weren’t on or the team played like it always does on sundays (slow and tired) that could have been the admirals skating around heads down and disgusted with how its ending…. Anyway the ads need to play smart vs a Heat team whom we watched rise through the standings fast at the end of the season this will not be an easy series and the admirals need to take the first two game at home, you don’t want to play catch up on the road.
With regard to the 5 on 3, it was the correct call.
Rissanen was in the box at 6:48
Bellemore, Blanchard, Durno, Durno at 7:44 (Durno was not a double-minor, but 2 individual roughing penalties which ran concurrently)
Beck, Dupont, Mueller at 7:44.
That effectively leaves Charlotte with no one on the ice, and Milwaukee with 2. Since 3 is the minimum number of players on the ice, adjust the numbers up and it ends up a 5 on 3 for 64 seconds.
Thanks Ouch!, good to know I was on the right track!