The Milwaukee Admirals lost 3-2 in overtime against the Rockford IceHogs at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena on Friday night.
There was far more to like than otherwise tonight for the Admirals. They had some great defensive effort and climbed out of a first period hole with a lead. Sadly, the game went to overtime and the IceHogs found a break with Sam Carrick in the three-on-three period that sealed things.
“We’re disappointed in how we give up goals,” stated Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason after the game. “We don’t give teams anything until we give teams everything.”
Tonight’s game got off to a bad start as the IceHogs would quickly take the lead from a Brandon Mashinter breakaway goal. Mashinter glided down the slot and snapped a shot low to the glove of Marek Mazanec that went in for his ninth goal of the season to make it 1-0 IceHogs.
The Admirals would get two responses to the IceHogs opening goal in the first period to see them ahead 2-1.
Trevor Smith created a turnover right in front of netminder Jeff Glass and Matt White stepped right into the loose puck with a cannon of a shot from point blank range to score his tenth of the season. Then Vladislav Kamenev had a dazzling no-look backhand pass as he was skating around the net that setup Adam Payerl for an easy tap-in. Glass was looking for Kamenev out the left side of the net and Payerl was scoring his eighth goal behind his back.
The IceHogs would equalize in the late stages of the third period following a tripping call against Anthony Richard. Ville Pokka whipped a wrister from the top of the right wing circle and it glanced past the net front screen of Mashinter and then off the leg of Alex Carrier before popping into the net for a power-play goal. The series of bad bounces meant Pokka had recorded his third goal of the season and leveled the contest at 2-2 with just over six-minutes remaining in regulation.
As was the case the last time these two locked horns overtime was required tonight. Matt White had a chance on a breakaway to seal it but Glass locked the pads together and took away the bottom of the net to make the save. In the end, Sam Carrick would skate down the left wing and rip a wrister from the face-off circle that flew into the top shelf past Mazanec for the overtime winner on his tenth goal of the season.
The Admirals are right back in action tomorrow night on home ice when they see the Chicago Wolves at 6:00 PM CST. They will complete the three-in-three weekend with revenge of tonight in mind when they travel to Rockford on Sunday for a game at 4:00 PM CST.
“We’re disappointed in the outcome. We’re not disappointed in the way that we worked,” said Evason. “But we are disappointed in the turnovers and giving them opportunities, clear, easy opportunities to score.”
Ramblings: Since the Milwaukee Admirals played on Tuesday night there haven’t been any roster moves made in the organization. Tonight’s line combinations were: Fiala-Ribeiro-Gaudreau, Florek-Smith-White, Kirkland-Kamenev-Payerl, Liambas-Army-Richard, Oligny-Carrier, Murphy-Granberg, O’Brien-Dougherty. Tonight’s scratches were: Adam Pardy (upper-body) and Rick Pinkston (healthy).
What were your thoughts on tonight’s game? Are the Milwaukee Admirals still fighting themselves a little bit or are they slowly getting a foundation set for a run in the right direction? Will the mistakes be corrected by tomorrow night?
Be sure to keep updated with Admirals Roundtable through social media platform of your choice: follow along Twitter, like us on Facebook, get photo updates on Instagram, and listen along on SoundCloud.
Admirals Roundtable 
The Ads played well enough to win. They just could not get another goal despite open or half open nets, and hitting the crossbar and the post in the game.
What started the winning goal in motion was the Admiral (Payerl?) who was knocked down (interfered with) in the SE corner. That was the third time in the game that Rockford tried that play, but he was the only Admiral to get plastered and end up flat on the ice.
The on ice officials were POOR! Rockford had 4 skaters on the ice for about 5 seconds in the OT and none of the 3 Blind Mice called it. The fourth IceHog skated over the red center line from the south bench door by the blue line before his teammate crossed in front of the Milwaukee bench. How does that happen with only 3 skaters per team?
Linesman #52 should be fired. He threw an Admiral out of the face off in the third period because of the way he leaned over the dot. The Rockford played was completely over the dot and #52 did and said nothing. The Admiral player pointed to his own left skate to show that it was in the correct position, but to no avail. You may have noticed Dean Evason calling #52 over about the delay of game call. I am fairly sure that only 2 Admirals came off the ice, but #52 insisted that 3 guys had to come back out, which led to the confusion, which led to the penalty when Trevor Smith tried to come out and speak to the ref. Evason also spoke to the ref, probably telling him that #52 was full of it. #52 blew about 10 calls in the game. He was the worst this season.
Linesman #39 was booed by about 7000 fans for his off sides call at the blue line with about 1:30 left in regulation. Who do you think was right? None of those 3 guys earned their money!
BTW, TheAHL.com says that zero fans attended the game. Is there something wrong with the Panther Arena? Did they have some kind of electronic failure? I have never seen that before.