To avoid getting swept away by all this flooding rain here in Southeastern Wisconsin today I trekked down to the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena to get a look at practice. At last night’s Milwaukee Admirals season ticket holder event the latest edition, Adam Pardy, was on-hand but today the team put together a comprehensive run of drills that show just how the team should look this weekend.

Florek-Smith-Åberg
White-Kamenev-Gaudreau
Richard-Kirkland-Görtz
Liambas-Girard-Payerl

Oligny-Granberg
Pardy-Carrier (Diaby)
Murphy-Dougherty

Saros
Gunnarsson

The noticeable absentee at practice this morning was defenseman Jaynen Rissling. He appears to have been assigned by the Admirals to the Cincinnati Cyclones (ECHL) but there is nothing official about that as of yet.

Looking at how the defense stacks up now that Pardy is here it looks as though the Admirals are elevating Jimmy Oligny to the top pairing with Petter Granberg while stationing the veteran Pardy alongside Alex Carrier. The pairing of Trevor Murphy and Jack Dougherty remains untouched. Jonathan Diaby did take part in a few line rushes as a right-side option to Pardy but was mainly left to work in certain set piece drills.

Now that the forward depth is a bit thinned out the group is looking pretty cemented until the likes of Harry Zolnierczyk and/or Austin Watson return. As it is it means Justin Kirkland claiming a center role with Frédérick Gaudreau bouncing out to the wing. Matt White, who sat out the Admirals opening three games as a healthy scratch, will be the opposite winger to Gaudreau with Vladislav Kamenev centering the line. All lines seem to gel really well and have a lot to like when you consider each lines skill sets. It will be interesting to watch how they work out at game speed this weekend during the three-in-three: in Iowa on Friday night, at home against Iowa Saturday night, and in Rockford late Sunday afternoon.

After practice I wanted to hear from Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason about Monday’s trade. I also wanted to hear from the man himself, Pardy, of what his reaction to the trade was and what he knew of the organization. Plus, little fan fair was really made of the pro debut of Kirkland a week ago because it took place in Cincinnati followed by his AHL debut last Saturday which happened on the road. So, I finally chatted with him on how the debuts went. Here were the conversations post-practice from today:

If Anthony Bitetto’s injury means having Matt Irwin gone for a significant amount of time how do you view the current look of the Milwaukee Admirals defense?

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