The Milwaukee Admirals lost 4-2 against the Rockford IceHogs at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena on Saturday night.
Tonight the IceHogs didn’t play their record one bit. They played desperate and continued to throw shot after shot at Marek Mazanec. The shots total tonight paints a poor picture as the IceHogs outshot the Admirals 42-34 which helped in providing a win tonight in Milwaukee.
“We’ve talked a lot about it doesn’t matter who we play, where we play, when we play. When the puck drops we play hard. The last two nights we have not,” said Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason after the game. “That has been the biggest disappointment for us.”
After last night it was clear that the Admirals wanted to have a good start. They did just that by getting on the board first from an unlikely source in the opening frame. Jack Dougherty jumped up on the rush and crashed the net. Mike Ribeiro labeled a perfect pass from the left wing to his tape to give the Admirals’ Man of the Year his second goal of the season.
The IceHogs would knot things up at 1-1 in the second period. Michael Latta was able to rip a wrister off before Rick Pinkston could close him down. The former-Admiral’s shot flew top shelf over the stick-side shoulder of Marek Mazanec for Latta’s fourth goal of the season.
The Admirals second period woes seemed to continue and do so In rough fashion. Anthony Louis was skating low right wing against Andrew O’Brien and managed to score from a very bad angle against Mazanec to the near post. The goal for Louis was the first of his pro career.
Thankfully, the Admirals would get a response 1:31 of ice-time later to level things back up at 2-2. Vladislav Kamenev snapped a low shot that went into the pads of Jeff Glass. It looked for a moment that Glass had the puck frozen but it had enough juice on it that it wheeled on through to goal to count as Kamenev’s nineteenth of the season.
The third period would get started with some fireworks. Pinkston leveled Luke Johnson as he motored down the right wing wall in attack. That caught the eye of IceHogs captain Jake Dowell who skated on over, said some words, and then the gloves were off. It was more of a grappling match that ended with Pinkston throwing Dowell down. That still should go as a win for Pinkston in your fight cards.
Shortly after the dust up it would be the IceHogs gathering off the fight energy and scoring. Brandon Mashinter stationed himself in front of Mazanec, had a rebound, and was left by Trevor Smith and Alex Carrier to swiftly swat a second chance opportunity through for his fifteenth goal of the season to give the IceHogs a 3-2 lead.
Mazaznec would make his way to the bench with 1:19 remaining in regulation to bring on the extra attacker. With 45.6 seconds remaining in regulation a puck along the IceHogs bench drew a too many men on the ice penalty and gave the Admirals a chance with two extra bodies on the ice. The IceHogs took a time out at the time of the penalty. And Ville Pokka would hammer a puck the length of the ice into the empty net to score a shorthanded empty netter right off the following draw to make it 4-2 IceHogs from the Finn’s sixth goal of the season.
“We just didn’t play well for one period last night,” said Evason. “We didn’t play well at all tonight.”
The Admirals will finish up this weekend’s three-in-three with a lovely bus ride down to Des Moines and the Wells Fargo Arena where they will face-off against the Iowa Wild on Sunday at 5:00 PM CDT. They will then see these very same IceHogs at the BMO Harris Bank Center on Wednesday at 7:00 PM CDT to cap off a quick road set before returning home to finish off the regular season.
“We need to adjust and comeback with a great game tomorrow,” said Evason. “I don’t care how far we’re going to travel. We’re going to play a hockey game and we better play hard.”
Ramblings: Since the Milwaukee Admirals played last night the received Yakov Trenin who was assigned to them by the Nashville Predators after his junior season with Gatineau in the QMJHL came to an end in the first round of the playoffs. Tonight’s line combinations were: Richard-Ribeiro-Gaudreau, White-Smith-Åberg, Kirkland-Kamenev-Payerl, Liambas-Trenin-Kelleher, Murphy-Dougherty, Pinkston-Carrier, O’Brien-Girard. Tonight’s scratches were: Army (healthy), Florek (healthy), Granberg (healthy), and Pardy (healthy). Reminder, Jimmy Oligny was announced as out for the rest of the season following knee surgery this week.
What were your thoughts on tonight’s game? It seemed that the Milwaukee Admirals were somewhat overwhelmed by the Rockford IceHogs early in this game. Does a performance such as this make you worry about the Admirals or is this the result of resting certain players and mixing things up?
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Admirals Roundtable 
Allowing 17 shots in the first period was bad, very bad. The Ads were lucky to be ahead after that period. I didn’t understand what Maz was doing tonight. He ducked down on the first goal. If he doesn’t do that, the puck doesn’t go in. I could have stopped that shot by just standing there. The second goal was a mystery to me. It was a bad angle shot, but Maz was about 6 inches in front of the post, leaving room behind him. If he hugs the post, like usual, that one doesn’t go in either. (Maz stood on his head last night. The one goal was scored by a guy camped at the far post for 5 seconds with nobody covering him. A goalie can’t stop that by himself. Where was THAT guy?)
Smith did not play well tonight! Aberg should have scored a goal in the first period, but an IceHog had the blade of Aberg’s stick under his arm. The ref was 10 feet away and called nothing. Aberg had a few choice words for him after that play. It cost Milwaukee a goal. White was a -3. That line didn’t have a good night.
Girard didn’t play as well tonight. At least one right wing skated around him on the outside and had a clean shot on goal. Last night he would have stopped the puck. Payerl couldn’t win a face off. The Liambas, Trenin, Kelleher line played hard, but didn’t score. The Richard, Ribiero, Gaudreau line had lots of shots on goal, but most were outside the dots, visible to Glass the goalie, and into his chest or glove. None had a real chance of going into the net. Is there some reason why Richard can’t see the puck by his feet? It happened a few times tonight.
The Ads looked bad on their PP. At the end of the game, even 6-on-4, they could not get a shot off. Why do the D-men keep staying at the blue line on the weak side? They need a guy who cheats down like Aberg does. Murphy would be good at it with his shot. Maybe Dougherty or Pinkston could do that also. Just come down to the top of the circle once in a while!
Pinkston played well defensively. He had a hard, clean hit and won his fight against Dowell.
I blame the regular players, not the new guys, for this loss. I worry about the playoffs!
Florek not playing tonight showed he’s not the most flashy or recognizable but he plays a relentless game getting after loose pucks making passing lanes difficult and just an overall beast. Tonight Rockford rolled with ease into the zone on many an occasion and got a flurry of shots. Maz played well, he has all year and can’t do everything out there, the Latta goal he should have had the other two our team crapped itself on. I get the “now is a good time to rest guys and let some young guys play etc etc” but we play a 5 game series round 1, and have been whipped three games and out the last few times in we need this group to gel and play cohesive, outside of Girard the other guys can sit, we have 4 games to get in fighting form. Use the guys that got us here. Was nice to see Freddy actually taking shots when he had them tonight.
I usually don’t comment on the music, but here goes. Dan and Shay were BORING! Their songs weren’t very good in my opinion and they kind of sound alike. When they sang “Shot Through the Heart” by Bon Jovi, they showed real singing talent! Perhaps they will improve their song writing with more time, but it was one country act that I just didn’t get.
Tickermaster showed about less than 700 tickets left. Yet, the box score attendance was 8,008. Do they not have some seats open for concerts?
Tho I thought the Ads were flat last night, Rockford recently got a pretty sizable infusion of talent due to post-college season signings, after being depleted by call-ups and injuries for most of the season plus the loss of scoring potential at the trade deadline. I thought the Hogs looked like a very different team than the last several times I saw them. Doesn’t excuse the low effort by the Admirals but I didn’t find the loss totally shocking. I arrived at the game curious to see what the IceHogs were gonna look like now, and assuming it might not be a slam dunk W for the Ads.
MUPANTHER: Attendance is tickets sold for an AHL game. You can have no shows and see empty seats. I have never heard how many seats are available for hockey at the Panther Arena.
I am guessing around 9,000. It used to be 11,500 or so for basketball, but there have been some changes in the last 28 years. Perhaps Daniel can enlighten us on how many seats is a sell out?
Adsfan- Yes, I know attendance is tickets sold in every event. MLB, NBA, NCAA, ETC. I understand no shows. You ever go to a Marquette-Coppin State in the middle of week when 5,000 people are in the building and the paid attendance is 12,000.
UWM Panther Arena is said to seat about 9,400 for hockey per Harris Turer. Panther Arena (8,910) permanent seats. The Admirals biggest crowd this season was on Jan. 28th @ 8,833. The way you can see how many tickets are available is on the ticketmaster map web-site for events. The map showed around less than 700 tickets left. I was shocked that the paid attendance was just over 8,000 on Saturday night.