The Milwaukee Admirals won 3-1 against the Chicago Wolves Tuesday night at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.
The Admirals point streak has now reached thirteen games which ties a franchise record that was set during the 1992-93 season. During this run the Admirals have a record of 11-0-0-2 and have won their last seven games straight. This closes out the Amtrak Rivalry this season in which the Admirals claimed the Amtrak Trophy by holding a 9-3-0-0 record over the Wolves.
“We’ve been resilient,” commented Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason in regards to the team’s current run. “Some nights we haven’t had our best and we’ve played a lot of tough games to play where teams are playing really loose and really hard. And we’ve been challenged. That’s good. We’ve been able to find ways, different ways, to win hockey games and clearly that’s a good sign.”
It wouldn’t be until the second period for this game to see the opening goal. Pontus Åberg picked up a puck in neutral ice and proceeded to carve from center to the right wing on zone entry where he hit Max Reinhart clean with a beauty of a saucer pass to give his closest competitor for the team lead in goals another tally. Reinhart’s goal was his twenty-second of the season which sets a career high for him in the AHL. His previous career best came as a member of the Abbotsford Heat in the 2013-14 season when he scored twenty-one goals.
“It’s good to get career highs,” said Max Reinhart. “It’s obviously a good season for me goal scoring-wise but that’s not something I’m looking forward to. One of my goals in the season is to help teams win and that’s what we’re doing right now.”
Following two quick penalties the Admirals were forced to endure a five-on-three penalty kill of 1:51 in length. After a quick cycle in front of Juuse Saros the Wolves were able to go from Ivan Barbashyov in the low right wing to a tap in from Danny Kristo in the slot that slid underneath the Admirals netminder. The goal for Kristo was his twenty-third scored this season.
With 4:32 remaining in regulation Jordan Schmaltz was called for tripping to give the Admirals their fifth chance on the power-play where they had yet to make a dent. All that went down was Kevin Fiala feeding Trevor Murphy at the top of the blueline where the Ads defenseman unleashed a howitzer of a slap shot that beat Jordan Binnington glove-side for his eleventh goal of the season.
“Obviously [Trevor Murphy] shoots the puck as well as anybody,” said Evason. “You score goals from the top like that on a goalie in pro hockey the puck is moving. That puck was moving.”
The Wolves went empty net and extra attacker with 1:54 remaining in regulation and burned their timeout with 47.6 seconds remaining. As time was expiring Patrick Mullen was able to launch a shot from the Admirals own blueline to score into the empty net for his third goal of the season.
Saros was once again up to his now usual tricks. He stopped 28/29 shots on goal to record his twenty-ninth win of the season. He has won his last eight starts consecutively.
Ramblings: Since the Milwaukee Admirals last played a massive amount of roster activity took place. The Nashville Predators assigned Marek Mazanec, Corey Potter, and Anthony Richard to the Admirals. The Admirals then reassigned Brandon Whitney to the Cincinnati Cyclones (ECHL) and signed defenseman Aaron Irving to an amateur try-out contract. Also in the news is the notable absence of defenseman Taylor Aronson who has left the team for the time being due to personal reasons. Tonight’s line combinations were: Reinhart-Gaudreau-Åberg, Fiala-Kamenev-Payerl, White-Girard-Görtz. AJ-Pendenza-Devane, Oligny-Potter, Näkyvä-Elliott, Murphy-Mullen. Tonight’s scratches were: Jack Dougherty (healthy), Cody Hodgson (upper-body), Anthony Richard (lower-body), Aaron Irving (healthy), and Johan Alm (lower-body).
Thoughts on tonight’s game? How impressive were the Admirals in finishing this game tonight?
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Good effort by Milwaukee tonight. I thought that Murphy’s shot was deflected to Binnington’s left, perhaps by the defenseman’s leg or skate. It seemed to change direction from my view at the south end of the ice.
Both goalies played well. I thought that the Wolves looked tired mid way through the second and third periods. The Admirals had more jump at those times, especially Payerl, Fiala and Mullen. They looked like they had Acme Rocket skates on! Chicago looked small and slow tonight.
Chicago’s offensive looked poor at times. Their only goal was on the 5-on-3. That was after Cannone must have done or said something. I didn’t see it, but Oligny and 2 other Admirals were skating after him. The 2 stupid refs fell for it and only called a penalty on Oligny. That one and the one where Fiala was getting mugged on the half wall while the puck was in the neutral zone were two of the worst calls and non-calls this season. That was why Fiala hammered Clark, because he was really angry about getting roughed up behind the play. Two refs and neither one called it.
The people in 206 to 204 really let the refs hear about that. The crowd was loud for its size.
On to the Western Conference Regular Season title!
Buy your playoff tickets now! You should get to see 2 or 3 rounds, maybe more.
adsfan: I actually felt bad for Binnington. He played an amazing game in net for the Wolves but was sort of left out in the wind at the end of that game. You can only shrug aside so much pressure before you break. The Wolves broke. Credit to the Ads heavy work rate from the second period forward but Binnington was the reason this game was as close as it was.
I saw on the AHL transactions that Griffin Reinhart was reassigned to Bakersfield. It will be fun to watch the brothers play against each other on Friday!!!