The Milwaukee Admirals lost 5-1 against the Manitoba Moose at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena on Saturday night.
The Admirals losing streak has reached six games. They faced a very dominant Moose squad on the evening but similar errors for the Admirals turned up once again. The Admirals have conceded twenty-eight goals during the losing streak and conceded five goals in four of the six games.
“When things are not going good they go really bad and, right now, they’re really bad,” said Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason after the game. “It’s as bad as I’ve seen it here in my six-years. We have to find a way to stick together and find a way out of this.”
An all too common sight in the recent skid for the Admirals is seeing a turnover from the Admirals attacking blueline turn into a long distance breakaway. It happened again tonight as Nic Petan forced a puck loose on Jimmy Oligny at the left point and was off to the races on a breakaway that would end with a shot just over the glove of Anders Lindbäck. Petan’s twelfth goal of the season gave the Moose a 1-0 lead midway through the first period.
The Admirals would answer back in the second period with some pace of their own. Joonas Lyytinen took a hit to make a play up ice that helped trigger a three-on-one rush. Frédérick Gaudreau then dropped a pass over to Emil Pettersson down the left wing. The AHL All-Star glided in on Eric Comrie in a shooting position before snapping a low wrister through the five-hole to bag his tenth goal of the season and make it a 1-1 game.
Quickly after seeing their fourth power-play of the night come and go the Moose would get a response. Julian Melchiori had a shot from the right point that knuckled up en route to Lindbäck. The Swede would shrug the shot aside to his right but into the path of JC Lipon for an easy rebound tally and his tenth goal of the season.
Before the end of the second period the Moose would finally cash in from the power-play chances they were being given. Yakov Trenin was called for a holding the stick penalty. This set the stage for Sami Niku to shoot from the center point and whistle a wrister through traffic and the net front presence of Patrice Cormier for his ninth goal of the season to get the Moose ahead 3-1.
To start the third period the Moose still had time remaining on the power-play. The moment Harry Zolnierczyk exited the box the Moose had already fired a shot to make it 4-1. Brendan Lemieux glided from right to left and wired a shot through traffic from the high slot to record his twelfth goal of the season.
The damage wouldn’t end but the night in net for Lindbäck would. Brody Sutter would take advantage of a scrambling Admirals defense around the low slot and flip a shot past the glove for his fourth goal of the season making it a 5-1 Moose lead.
Lindbäck threw his stick in disgust after the fifth goal against. And that was his night. He stopped 35/40 shots on goal before giving way to Jake Paterson. It was the second time in two weeks that the Admirals pulled their starting goaltender.
The game would conclude there. The Admirals defeat was their sixth in succession while the Moose extend their winning streak to five-games. Comrie, behind everything for the Admirals, did a great job in negating plenty of chances and stopped 36/37 shots on goal on the night.
These two are right back at it again on Tuesday night at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena. That will be followed by a three-in-three weekend for the Admirals that starts on the road against the Rockford IceHogs on Friday.
Ramblings: Prior to tonight’s game the Nashville Predators acquired forward Mark McNeill from the Dallas Stars in exchange for defenseman Andrew O’Brien. In addition, the Milwaukee Admirals traded forward Tyler Kelleher to the Texas Stars for future considerations. Tonight’s line combinations and defensive pairings were: Trenin-Smith-Butler, Zolnierczyk-Pettersson-Gaudreau, Labrie-Zengerle-Mingoia, Richard-Kirkland-Moy, Lyytinen-Granberg, Allard-Carrier, Oligny-Dougherty. Tonight’s scratches were: Scratches: Derek Army (healthy), Cody Bass (upper-body), Mark McNeill (travel), and Trevor Murphy (undisclosed).
What is your reaction to tonight’s game? Can some sting of this loss be lessened by the fact that the Manitoba Moose have been doing this to everyone this season? What measures need to start being done to prevent or minimize the amount of game changing individual errors that the Milwaukee Admirals are committing?
Be sure to keep updated with Admirals Roundtable through social media platform of your choice: follow along on Twitter, like us on Facebook, get photo updates on Instagram, and listen along on SoundCloud.
Admirals Roundtable 
Can’t score goals to save their lives, so let’s trade away one of the few offensive bright spots this team had for an ice cold Coca Cola! I’m dumbfounded by that move and this game only made it worse. Holy hell, I hope with Fish coming back, NSH sends us some much needed help…
Cut down on the ticky-tac penalties, like against Smith and Trenin, so the refs can’t call them! The Ads seemed to be shorthanded for most of the second period. Play Jake Paterson in goal on Tuesday. He defended the net during the last 10 minutes like his life depended on it! Lindback needs a rest. We could use one of those 8 D-men that Nashville has. It was more of the same tonight.
Something on this team needs to change. What that is, I don’t have the answer. With the exception of Oligny’s snafu, the first period looked like they were playing with a passion. After that it started going down hill. By the third period it looked as if the team quit. All the comments I’m seeing on facebook are get rid of Evason. I’m not sure if that would do anything at this point. Add to that, you look at what his coaching has done as far as guys being able to go up to the Preds and fit right in.
Hulltech has it right with his last sentence. Evason’s primary job is to prepare the players for the next level. He has done a great job of that. Getting wins is very much a secondary objective. Wouldn’t you expect that he already would have been on the hot seat, if not gone, if the Preds were bothered by the playoff record (for example)?
To be quite honest, I would expect this level of play to be the norm, maybe a little better, for the next 3-5+ years. The Preds are doing quite well and will be be for at least the next few years. That means they aren’t going to have many high draft picks and the few gems found lower probably won’t be with the Ads much (such as Tolvanen). The AHL also has a limit to the number of veterans you can have on a team, so there’s only so much Fenton/Poile can do there. Ads fans aren’t used to this. I’d say go talk to some Ice Hogs fans.
Yes, this all sucks if you’re only an Ads fan, not an Ads & Preds fan.
And Adsfan, enough of the constant complaining about the refs. Almost every game it’s the same thing. The Ads get away with quite a bit too. It’s just a game!