The Milwaukee Admirals lost 3-0 against the Grand Rapids Griffins Friday night at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
And, Admirals fans, the team has hit a low that it has not reached in years. It is the first time the Admirals have lost four straight games in regulation since the 2011-12 season when they lost five straight games (1/22/12–2/3/12).
It is the third time this season that the Admirals have been shutout and second in the last four games. The Admirals offense has produced just two goals from their last 249:43 of ice time. Their power-play is now on a drought of nineteen.
Operating the game’s first power-play opportunity allowed the Griffins to get on the board early tonight. A blast from the top of the right wing circle by Robbie Russo was shrugged off by Marek Mazanec to the opposite wing where Evgeny Svechnikov managed to score on a snap shot from the rebound. The goal goes down as his ninth scored on the season.
The Griffins would extend their first period lead on their second power-play opportunity. It took the Griffins just a matter of seconds to win the face-off and get a Ben Street shot from the right point to deflect off of Mitch Callahan’s stick in the slot clean past Marek Mazanec for his eleventh goal of the season to make it 2-0 Griffins.
After a slashing call against Derek Army in the early stages of the second period the Griffins did it again – as did Svechnikov. The Griffins power-play cycled from the right point with Russo over to the right wing dot for Svechnikov where the Russian sniped home the top corner near post for his second power-play goal on the evening and the Griffins third consecutive in the contest. It was Svechnikov’s tenth goal of the season.
The game would wrap at that scoreline. Eddie Pasquale earned his second shutout of the season over the Admirals. He stopped all thirty shots on goal. Meanwhile his counterpart, Mazanec, made twenty-five saves and only allowed the three goals that came from the power-play for the Griffins.
Next up for the Admirals is yet another four-game road trip. The Admirals will travel to the East Coast for a two-in-two against the Charlotte Checkers on Tuesday and Wednesday night with 6:00 PM CST start times. They will then play next weekend on Saturday and Sunday against the Chicago Wolves which will finish off playing at the Allstate Arena for the rest of the season.
Ramblings: Since the Milwaukee Admirals played on Wednesday there were a few roster moves of note. The Admirals released Garrett Meurs from his PTO Contract. Meurs has since returned to the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL. The Nashville Predators recalled defenseman Alex Carrier from the Admirals. It was his first career NHL recall and he could possibly make his NHL debut tomorrow afternoon. Then this morning the Predators traded Félix Girard to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Cody McLeod. The Admirals then recalled Anthony Richard from the Cincinnati Cyclones of the ECHL. Prior to game time the Admirals had Pontus Åberg reassigned to them by the Nashville Predators. He arrived ten minutes into pre-game skate. Tonight’s line combinations were: Richard-Smith-Åberg, White-Kamenev-Gaudreau, Florek-Kirkland-Görtz, Liambas-Army-Payerl, Pardy-Murphy, Oligny-Pinkston, Diaby-Dougherty. Tonight’s scratches were: Cody Bass, Petter Granberg, and Shawn O’Donnell. This was Anthony Richard’s first game played since 12/16/16 with the Cyclones when he suffered an injury. It was his first game with the Admirals since 12/9/16 in a road game against the Griffins.
Was this about what you expected from the Milwaukee Admirals after today’s trade and recent roster fluctuations? What happened to the Admirals ability to score goals? Will a solid trip to the East Coast to play against the Charlotte Checkers be a welcome reset switch?
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Admirals Roundtable 
The Ads need to find the net. There was a lot of effort tonight, but not much scoring. They seemed to shoot the puck at the goalie or wide of the net, even from 10 or 20 feet away.
Even at the end of the game the refs called more penalties on the Admirals than the Griffins.
It doesn’t help to have Shaun of the Dead as a ref. He seems to favor the road team, much like Earl Strom of the NBA. The other ref wasn’t very good either. Russo should be suspended for what he did! But the refs, probably didn’t see much. What else is new.
It was good to see Diaby throwing some checks. Oligny too. GR seemed to pick on Liambis, but he didn’t go for their cheap shots.
I haven’t left a game early in probably 5 or 6 years, and that was probably minutes to go. Tonight I left after the 2nd. I had watched enough, this team looked, confused and sloppy. Too many mistakes and too many penalties again. I have doubting the play of this group more and more, and trying to determine was the November team just playing well above it’s head? I understand that some guys are up or hurt like Bass. But the core of this team is mostly there and we have 2 goals in 4 games. It wouldn’t matter if Saros is here or not if you can’t score you lose. This team has played poorly vs the top teams in the division and are slipping down the standing. While Wednesday’s gme in Chicago was a way better effort we only got one super late, but I stayed that whole game cause I felt we played well and had a chance. This game could have been eleven periods long and we still wouldn’t find the back of the net. Tonight in the first two Pasquale was barely challenged in the game vs Chicago Copley was, and made some great saves. Losing Felix hurts but watching this team play this bad vs a team you have to beat if you want to do anything is difficult. Truely embarrassing in front of a decent crowd sadly we have several big crowds booked in the near future to come watch us get whipped before the band comes out.