The Milwaukee Admirals lost 6-0 against the Grand Rapids Griffins Friday night at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. The defeat ends the Admirals franchise best ten-game winning streak while the Griffins winning streak is now up to five-games. It is the first time the Admirals have been shutout this season.
Andy Miele put the Griffins out in front a little past the midway point of the first period. He was able to beat Kristian Näkyvä with a slick move while maintaining puck control on the backhand before flicking a wrister up and over the blocker of Marek Mazanec. It was a beauty of an individually worked goal and goes down as Miele’s third goal of the season.
The Griffins doubled their first period advantage late in the frame off of a power-play goal. Cody Bass was sent to the box following a minor penalty for an unsportsmanlike conduct. This led to a passage of up close and personal passing that tied up the Admirals defensemen in front of the net. The power-play goal would end up being a tap-in for Eric Tangradi following a setup pass by Mark Zengerle. The tally for Tangradi was his sixth goal of the season.
Following the Admirals first power-play chance of the game, in the second period, the Griffins extended their lead to 3-0. Zengerle was able to feed Miele on a wing to wing pass that put Miele one-on-one with Mazanec’s glove from the left wing. Mazanec remained stationary. Miele whipped his wrister clean past and scored his second goal of the game and fourth of the season.
In the third period the Griffins added yet another goal to push their lead up to 4-0. Conor Allen was sent to the box for a crosschecking minor and, right as his penalty expired, the Griffins scored. A pass from Andreas Athanasiou went to the tape of Mitch Callahan in the left wing circle and the Griffins winger squared up and found space to Mazanec’s glove side to record his fifth goal of the season.
The bad kept on getting bad as a defensive breakdown allowed for the Griffins fifth goal of the night. Max Reinhart was back defending Tomas Nosek with Näkyvä. Nosek dinked a puck free to his right where Daniel Cleary was all alone with Mazanec sat in front of him. The veteran whistled one through Mazanec towards the far post to score his first goal of the season and first in the AHL since the 1999-00 season as a member of the Hamilton Bulldogs.
It probably came too late for the Admirals but a fight did breakout with under four-minutes of regulation to play. Adam Payerl and Colin Campbell dropped the gloves close to the Griffins bench and grappled with one-another until Campbell earned a take down. Not much of a scrap but the win in the fight department goes to Campbell on the take down.
With 0.6 seconds remaining Louis-Marc Aubry won a foot race with Näkyvä and scored five hole on Mazanec to pick up his first goal of the season. The Admirals frustrations were evident following the goal. The Griffins played until the final horn and the Admirals were hoping the game would end. Before it ever came to it the Griffins tagged a sixth goal through Mazanec. The Czech netminder would snap his stick in disgust after the final horn sounded.
Ramblings: Since the Milwaukee Admirals last played there were some roster moves made. Eric Robinson was reassigned on loan to the ECHL affiliate Cincinnati Cyclones. Then the Nashville Predators recalled Admirals team captain Colton Sissons while placing Miikka Salomäki on injured reserve. Stevie Moses made his return to game action after missing three straight games due to an upper-body injury. Johan Alm remained out, fourth straight game, due to a lower-body injury. Alm was the lone scratch for the Admirals in tonight’s game. Tonight’s line combinations: Arvidsson-Gaudreau-Görtz, Åberg-Kamenev-Payerl, Fiala-Reinhart-Bass, Devane-Girard-Moses, Näkyvä-Aronson, Allen-Oligny, Noonan-Murphy. By getting shutout tonight, Viktor Arvidsson’s thirteen-game point streak officially came to an end tonight. It is the longest points streak in the AHL this season and is so by three-games to the next closest points streak. Arvidsson had scored in every single game he had played with the Admirals this season until tonight.
What is your reaction to tonight’s game? What did the Griffins do that ended the Admirals streak? Was this more a matter of the Griffins coming in stronger than the Admirals beating themselves tonight? Can the Admirals get back to winning ways tomorrow night against the Rockford IceHogs?
Be sure to follow Admirals Roundtable on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and see our photos on Instagram.
Admirals Roundtable 
Maz actually snapped 3 sticks tonight. He should have to pay for them himself. Temper temper. Attitude adjustment training.
Sucked. Scored. A). Yep.
Do you ask the coaches hard questions like this?
Grand Rapids played 60 minutes of hockey, ES, PP and PK. The Ads looked like they ate too much turkey yesterday. Fiala, Bass, Moses, Görtz, Payerl, Oligny, Allen & Noonan looked like they were trying. The rest of the team looked like they were sleep skating. The passing was very bad.
Anti-Stars of the Game: #1 Nakyva. He was on the ice for 4 of the 6 goals. On #1, he was a pylon.
#2 He went out beyond the face off dot and was caught out of position on the PK. A deadly error.
#5 Nakyva not playing defense, again. #6 Nakyva was too slow, again!
#2 Arvidsson. He probably did more to stop the power play than the Griffins did in the game.
He would wait with the puck, usually inside the blue line opposite the face off dot, until a Griffin came towards him. He would then unleash a slapper off of that player’s leg. I didn’t count, but Arvidsson must have done that 10 times. It was stupid beyond belief!
#3 Mazanec: Goals #3 & #4 were on him. Huge gaps (5 hole and 1 hole) and poor positional play on those two goals. The D-men really didn’t help him out at times.
What needs to be done? Send Nakyva down to Cincinnati. Call up Diaby or another D-man. That will help the defense. Sit Arvidsson. That will help the offense and PP. Play Saros. He is the superior goalie on the team. Saros should be getting 2/3 of the starts. I would have taken Mazenec out after the third goal. Definitely after the fourth goal. Evason didn’t use good judgment leaving him in and I don’t blame Maz for smashing his stick. He showed a little fire for once!
I felt sorry for Aronson. He was caught between 2 Griffins on the second goal. He did play at least one shift with Murphy in the second period. I was hoping that Nakyva was benched, but no such luck. Milwaukee will need to be a lot more physical against the IceHogs. They can’t leave it up to just Payerl, Oligny, Allen and Bass again. The team missed Alm tonight.
DerpDan: I ask Dean Evason and all players questions related to what’s happening in the game. Example, tonight I asked Girard what was going on in the faceoff circle with the Admirals always seemingly getting kicked out for no real reason?
Lots of bizarre things in this game that almost felt alien to watch considering the way the team has played previously. Hopefully these were all the mistakes that were missing previously and it is now out of the system. This was a rough game to watch.
Arvidsson has been one of the best players on the ice for the past 10 games. One poor game and all of a sudden he should be benched?? Wow.
The entire team didn’t look good tonight. Grand Rapids came out skating and Milwaukee stood around. On the PP, guys stood in place (which allowed Grand Rapids to clog shooting lanes and easily break up passes) instead of maneuvering around and getting open. Overall we fell back into individual efforts instead of playing as a group.