The Milwaukee Admirals won 3-2 in a shootout against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Sunday night at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
For the second time in two months: the Admirals have swept a weekend three-in-three. The new-look Admirals now find themselves sitting in fifth place of the Central Division standings. Anders Lindbäck’s thirty-eight save effort stole the show tonight, forced overtime, and he and Anthony Richard closed out the shootout in style.
“[Lindbäck] has been -the- guy, not our guy, -the- guy,” said Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason of his goaltender. “And he continues to do that. We just feel so confident in him. He’s been everything on and off the ice.”
Wearing the “A” patch on his jersey for the first time as an Admiral, Frédérick Gaudreau got the Admirals on the board first with a shorthanded goal. Emil Pettersson was whistled for hooking and then the Admirals penalty kill had Anthony Richard’s speed to trigger a counter attack. He triggered a two-on-nothing attack down the the left wing and then dished the puck to a wide open Gaudreau for a tap in and his fifteenth goal of the season.
After a barrage of shots on goal, the Penguins finally found the back of the net with less than two minutes to play in the first period. Ethan Prow took the puck and went untouched from the right point and fired a shot past traffic and Anders Lindbäck to tie the game at one apiece.
Reverting back to old habits, the Admirals were once again outshot in the opening period by a wide margin. After being outshot 8-2 in the first period of Friday night’s game, the Admirals were outshot 20-5 in the first period tonight.
“I think they came out with a mindset of shooting the puck which creates zone time and to steer in the rebounds,” said Anders Lindbäck of the Penguins opening flurry of shots. “I thought we did a good job. We did a good job of clearing guys out in front of me so I could scoop the rebounds that were there.”
In the second period, Petter Granberg made a questionable hit on Adam Johnson into the boards and the play was whistled dead for boarding. However, Tom Kostopolous wasn’t having it and decided to pick a fight with Granberg. The two went after each other and were split apart after Granberg brought Kostopolous to the ice.
Later in the period, Anthony Richard gave the Admirals the lead on his thirteenth goal of the season. Mark Zengerle had the puck behind the net as Richard skated down the slot and took Zengerle’s pass right in front of the goal and delivered a strike past Anthony Peters for the his thirteenth goal of the season.
“I think when you’re unable to score you just try to pick out a small corner in the net and you miss good chances,” said Anthony Richard. “Last night I missed a lot of chances, just missed the net. Just tried to shoot on the net tonight and keep things simple offensively. It worked, and I’ll keep that for the next games coming.”
With 1:21 left in the third period, Anthony Peters skated to the bench for an extra Penguin attacker. The Penguins were able to take advantage of the 6-on-5 situation as Josh Jooris tied the game at two with just 39.3 seconds remaining in regulation. Jean-Sébastien Dea took a slap shot from the right-wing circle and was scooped up by Jooris on the rebound as he snuck a shot past Anders Lindback.
With the game knotted at two, we headed to overtime. This was the second time this season the Admirals and Penguins have gone to overtime, with the Penguins prevailing the first time in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton back on 12/1/17.
With neither team able to score in the overtime period, we headed to a shootout. In the first round, both Justin Kirkland and Christian Thomas scored. In the second, both Frédérick Gaudreau and Daniel Sprong missed. In the third, both Bobby Butler and Jean-Sébastien Dea missed. In the fourth and final round, Anthony Richard scored and Garrett Wilson was stopped by Anders Lindbäck to secure the Admirals’ 3-2 victory.
The shootout victory now makes the Admirals seven-for-eight in shootouts this season. Not only that, but the Admirals now move into fifth place past the Rockford IceHogs in the Central Division with the tonight’s result.
Both starting goalies were very solid in this one. Anthony Peters stopped 20/22 shots he faced, while Anders Lindbäck stopped 38/40 shots he faced. Lindbäck was once again outstanding for the Admirals, making some incredible saves throughout the regulation and overtime periods. Most importantly, Lindbäck made the game-winning save against Garrett Wilson in the shootout en route to his twenty-fourth win of the season.
The Milwaukee Admirals will now have a few days off before a 10:30 AM CST face-off with the division-leading Manitoba Moose on Wednesday. It will be the first time these two have played since a post-game fracas that resulted in a goalie fight between Lindbäck and Jamie Phillips.
“I don’t think their goalie is going to come down,” laughed Lindbäck. “It’s going to be a quiet one! We will see.”
Ramblings: Since the Milwaukee Admirals last played on Friday night, there have been no roster moves made within the organization. Prior to tonight’s game Harry Zolnierczyk was suspended for one-game by the AHL for a “kicking incident” Friday night against the Rockford IceHogs. Zolnierczyk will be back in action on Wednesday. Tonight’s line combinations and defensive pairings were: Kirkland-Smith-Butler, Richard-Gaudet-Gaudreau, Bollig-Pettersson-Zengerle, Trenin-McNeill-Moy, Lyytinen-Granberg, Allard-Dougherty, Carrier-Ramage. Tonight’s scratches included: Cody Bass (upper-body), Trevor Mingoia (healthy), Jimmy Oligny (upper-body), and Harry Zolnierczyk (suspended).
What were your thoughts on tonight’s game? Was this weekend sweep the spark the Milwaukee Admirals needed? How impressed have you been with how quickly the team seems to have gelled?
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Admirals Roundtable 
Where to begin? Tom K is a total puss! He jumps Granberg from behind. Granberg has his gloves on. Tom K is punching him repeatedly. Granberg gets one glove off and punches Tom K one time.Tom K goes down! Tom K goes down! Tom K goes down! Tom K couldn’t take my dead grandmother in a fight. Nothing has changed since 2004. He was a no good back jumping SOB then and he STILL is! Tom K gets no extra 2 minutes for starting a fight. What is wrong with these refs?
These refs were bad! How bad you ask? This bad!!!!!!!
“With 1:21 left in the third period, Anthony Peters skated to the bench for an extra Penguin attacker. The Penguins were able to take advantage of the 6-on-5 situation as Josh Jooris tied the game at two with just 39.3 seconds remaining in regulation.” Very little of that is true!
Here is the TRUTH! Peters skated towards his bench. Peters saw that an Admiral might get to the puck first instead of the right defenseman. He stopped to play the puck just above the left face off circle. He passed the puck to the MAN WHO CAME OFF THE BENCH TO REPLACE HIM! That was SEVEN WBS skaters on the ice! None of the 4 dolts on the ice noticed this. The crowd at the south end was screaming too many men! Too many men! Skater #6 turned up the ice and passed the puck to one of his 5 team mates that were either by the Admirals blueline or over the red line. Then with 39 seconds remaining, WBS scored a goal. That was Slap Shot bad! The on ice officials should be docked their pay for doing that. Your highlights skip over that sequence and only show the last 5 seconds or so when WBS scored their illegal goal. You should modify it to show what REALLY happened out there!
Lindback was outstanding in the OT and the SO. He won the game for Milwaukee. A game that they should have won during a PP at the end of regulation. So the refs, #2 Jarrod “The Big Ragu” Ragusin and #82 Alec “Ray Charles” Austin get the HEAD UP THEIR BUTT AWARD! The Junior Award goes to linesmen #68 Rhodes Dolan and #71 Shaun “Of the Dead From the Neck Up” Morgan. You 4 BLEW IT, gentlemen. Thank God Almighty that the Admirals got 2 points, but they were cheated out of a ROW by the Zebras!
The only things that the refs got right. Three penalties against WBS for messing with Admirals players behind the play. The boarding penalty on Granberg and the fighting penalties against him and the EVIL Tom Kostopoulos, the Dark Helmet of WBS. I spit on that dirty no good team. The only thing that the Baby Thugs did right was cycling the puck like no other team this season. It doesn’t make up for being a bunch of Slap Shot cheaters the rest of the night. They 1 point they got should be taken away by the AHL!
Were those the damn officials who f’ed the preds in game 6 last year against the pissburgh pens? They looked eerily similar.
Well another 3 in 3 and another sweep. Hopefully this team can put together some more consistency during the rest of the stretch. The new guys are doing well fitting in, too little of a sample size to say that they are making the needed impact or just a change of scenery resurgence of the moment. I like what Gaudet brings to the table, somebody who can actually win a draw! Smith has been brutal at times this year to watch in the dot refreshing to have someone new. Bollig is filling the massive void left by Cody Bass as well as he can actually willing to block shot and smart penalty killing, I’ll take that all day! Ramage may be the calming presence this defense has needed ironically Carrier didn’t look terrible last night and he was paired with Ramage maybe that’s working… Maybe. Overall team started how a Sunday afternoon in a 3n3 should, sloppy, slow and chasing the opposing team around. The heads up play of Richard helped break em from the slumber and set the tone for the rest of the day. We didn’t look pretty and we looked kinda tired but Lindy saved us in the end, and only was able to do so because he was afforded the day off on Saturday that helped us big time steal all 6pts this weekend. Outside of Richard and Lindback I felt Kirkland and Dougherty had fantastic games both played hard in a game that was very physical. Jack killed penalties with ease and poise and Kirky really was grinding out there, solid game overall wish we’d get out of the minimum shots per period thing that’s nerve racking.