The Milwaukee Admirals were shutout 3-0 against the Manitoba Moose at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena on Saturday night.
For the first time this season the Admirals have been shutout. Their power-play went blank from seven opportunities and timely offense on the part of the Moose extended their winning streak to six straight games.
“Certainly, the second period we have them four shots – and we’re down 2-0,” said Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason after the game. “For the most part we probably out-chanced them, their goaltender played well, but it’s one of the first time that we probably say we didn’t look like we were going to score. The offense let us down tonight.”
This game wouldn’t see an opening goal until the start of the second period. The Admirals had just seen their second power-play of the night come to and end and the Moose were right into attack mode. Michael Sgarbossa found Chase De Leo all alone in the slot. De Leo was able to snap a quick shot off that beat Anders Lindbäck low glove-side for his fourth goal of the season to get the Moose out in front 1-0.
The Admirals had so many opportunities on the power-play through the opening two periods of play. Yet, before the second period ended and on their seventh power-play of the game, Jack Roslovic would score shorthanded with 1.2 seconds remaining in the period to make it a 2-0 Moose lead. Roslovic was able to skate right past Alex Carrier. Once the Admirals defenseman was washed out on the ice all Roslovic had to beat was Lindbäck and he’d go backhand-to-forehand to score his eleventh goal of the season.
With 2:38 remaining in regulation Lindbäck came to the bench to bring out the extra attacker. That would go bust as Brendan Lemieux would score the empty net goal with six second remaining to make it a 3-0 game on his fifth goal of the season.
He might have become a fully fledged WWE level heel tonight but Comrie did earn a twenty-nine save shutout on the evening. He moved the net off its moorings and left the ice near the end of the game and the referees didn’t acknowledge the net coming free – and Trevor Smith subsequently scored into an empty net for what would be a “no goal” call. The win for the Moose extended their winning streak to six-games. They have only lost a single game from their last eleven games played.
“We know the net is off, we score, whatever. That’s fine,” stated Evason. “But the thing that irks us is that their goaltender knocks it off, the puck is in the zone, we score, the whistle goes, and the puck comes outside. We should have had an offensive opportunity off of it – but everybody makes mistakes.”
What is next for the Admirals is the start of quite the lengthy road spell cutting through December. Of the Admirals next eleven games they will be on the road nine times. This adventure starts at the Wells Fargo Arena on Tuesday night when the Admirals face-off against the Iowa Wild.
Ramblings: Since the Milwaukee Admirals played last night there were no roster moves made in the organization. Tonight’s line combinations and defensive pairings were: Zolnierczyk-Smith-Butler, Richard-Pettersson-Moy, O’Brien-Zengerle-Kelleher, Labrie-Kirkland-Bass, Oligny-Carrier, Lyytinen-Granberg, Murphy-Allard. Tonight’s scratches were: Jack Dougherty (healthy), Matt O’Connor (lower-body), Stephen Perfetto (healthy), and Yakov Trenin (upper-body). Tonight marked the debut of Andrew O’Brien at forward with the Admirals. O’Brien previously played out on the wing while within the Anaheim Ducks organization. Tonight’s attendance was 4,069.
What is your reaction to tonight’s game? Despite how well the Manitoba Moose have been playing entering this game – is it not a disappointment to see the Milwaukee Admirals playing this flat right now? What happened to the Admirals power-play?
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Admirals Roundtable 
That was an ugly game. If not for Lindback’s play the score would have been really bad.
The Admirals passing was bad all game. I won’t even mention the pp…woof.
What was the deal with face offs tonight? Not only were the Ads not winning many, but there were tons of kick outs to both teams and they took forever.
Were the Ads not allowing media after the game? Aaron didn’t have anyone on the post-game show and you don’t have a chatterbox.
This team is odd, this game vs Manitoba outside the terrible decision by Smith on the PPL that led to the breakaway shorty this game was probably the best effort from the Ads in the last three games but they lose?! The CLE game was Rocky and inconsistent the Chicago game was an absolute disaster outside of maybe 7mins of actual good play and tonight I felt the compete and fight in this team all night, still three basic things kept rearing their ugly heads, poor puck handling in our zone, too many offsides and passing was not very good. Thankfully these are things that as a team they can get better at. This was a very skilled and hard to beat Moose team outside of San Antonio they may boast one of the most impressive lineups. Let’s take this one on the chin and move forward and make December a rebound month.
This team gets too cute with its outlet passing. I’d like to see the defenseman skate out of the defensive zone rather than take risky cross ice passes.