The Admirals lost 3-1 against the Iowa Wild Friday night. It was another grinding effort from a visiting team that minimized Ads scoring chances and walked out with a win. It is now the third-straight home loss for the Ads.

“It’s such a hard game to get the pucks back in today’s game because there is no clutching, grabbing, hooking, holding,” said Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason after the game. “So, once you have the puck, let’s hang onto it a little bit until we get a real good scoring chance. If you just throw it away most teams are collapsing to the front of the net and you’re not going to get pucks to the net if you just throw it there. That was an area of concern for us here and as of late.”

After both enjoyed some time away from the rink during the AHL All Star break the start to this game was always going to be a question mark. Fast? Slow? One better than the other? In truth, both sides came out of the gate fairly slowly – as if to play a mistake free opening period.

The Wild did manage to fire more shots to the net in the opening period, 14-7, but one in particular stung. A smooth entry into the attacking zone for the Wild put the puck on Kyle Medvec’s stick. He passed over to the left wing where Jim McKenzie was breaking in and took his shot first time. His blast beat Marek Mazanec high to the glove-side to give the Wild a first period lead. For McKenzie that was his third goal of the season.

We did have a bout in the second period and it was brewed from some first period antics. The combination of Mathieu Tousignant and Mike Liambas weren’t shying away from the verbal side of the game. After a good whack against Tousignant – Liambas and Curt Cogol dropped the gloves. It didn’t last long. Not many blows it flesh – mainly the helmets took all the good ones – but it was a high charged little scrap. Both wanted to get up and keep swinging. The refs made sure that we’d not see it go any further… shame.

In the third period Erik Haula beat Joe Piskula in the neutral zone and carried all the way on the right wing for a goal. After skating by Piskula Haula had numbers and options with him – it became a three-on-one rush. He kept the puck, maintained a shooting position, and whipped a shot by Mazanec to make it a 2-0 Wild lead.

The Admirals were able to get on the board courtesy of another one-time slapper by Filip Forsberg on the power-play. Bryan Rodney slid a pass into Forsberg’s wheelhouse and his shot just about bowled Iowa netminder John Curry over. It’s the Swede’s seventh-goal of the season and his fifth scored from the power-play.

Then came a real backbreaker. The Admirals get the goal to make it a 2-1 game with just over ten-minutes remaining. A mere twenty-five seconds after Forsberg’s goal the Wild blitzed through the Ads for a response. It was a beautiful effort from Haula to generate his second goal of the game – and eleventh of the season.

“We struggled to find scoring chances,” said Evason. “Then you get one. You want to continue that momentum. Certainly that goal hurt us. We should have had more scoring chances earlier and didn’t.”

With twenty-eight seconds left on the clock the Ads did have a desperation chance in the form of a penalty shot. Corbin Baldwin closed his hand on the puck while behind Curry in the crease – resulting in the officials’ decision for the penalty shot. Taylor Beck was the man up to take it… skated in wide from the left wing… moved to the slot… and his wrister was stopped with a left pad save.

“We need to simplify our game,” said Evason after the game. “Simplified doesn’t mean brain dead and just throwing pucks away. You need to simplify your game as far as short passes, putting them into areas where you could get pucks back, get pucks through to the net.”

Ramblings: Marek Mazanec made his twelfth-consecutive start for the Admirals tonight. In that span he has gone (4-4-1-3). Bryan Rodney returned to the Admirals lineup for his first game since Feb. 1 vs. Grand Rapids. He had been out of the lineup due to the birth of his first child (a baby girl). Scott Darling, reassigned by the Admirals today to the Cincinnati Cyclones of the ECHL, did make a start for Cinci. He made thirty-five saves, including five-of-seven in the shootout, to earn a win in his return to game action.

What do you feel is wrong with the offense recently? What needs to change? And can they solve the problem in time for tomorrow’s game in Chicago?

The AHL All Star Classic pitted the league’s top stars against the professionals from the Swedish Elite League – Färjestad BK. The result turned out to be far more shocking than I was expecting. The AHL All Stars absolutely skated circles around Färjestad BK and won by a hefty 7-2 scoreline. Yeeeeeek!

I think we’re all far more interested in two key players: Colton Sissons and Pontus Åberg. Let’s start with the latter – whose team had a hard enough go of things in the first place.

Åberg, a second round draft pick of the Nashville Predators in the 2012 NHL Draft, didn’t have the sharpest of nights. Good news? He wasn’t alone in that respect for Färjestad BK. In truth, he made plenty of good looking plays – particularly working in and out of the neutral zone. Where all his good work seemed to fall flat was that he appeared to want to pass the puck more than shoot it. He was creating some space for himself – but then looking for a teammate. When he would pick out his teammate it seemed to take them by surprise. I was expecting to see more of this from a hodgepodge of AHL talent than a team that played together for a half-season so far.

It might have been a very small sample size – but it was my real first chance to view what Åberg is capable of. What I was left with from this game was the feeling of a player that does very much with very little. Still, that could be extremely harsh considering the circumstances of a game like this. He appears to move, skate, and stickhandle well enough. Should he find himself in Milwaukee in the near future… I’m hoping to see a mix of Miikka Salomaki and the next guy we’ll talk about.

If you didn’t get to watch last night’s AHL All Star Classic, but have watched Sissons play before, good news! You didn’t miss anything. Perhaps what is most impressive of his night might just be that. Regardless of the stage – he played just like he always does: smart, contained, aggressive while on the puck if he has the room to go for it, and defended well around the net. He never looked like anything more or anything less than what we’ve all seen before – and I count that as a plus!

Sissons highlight of the night included earning a plus while being on the ice for the AHL’s third goal of the game scored by Ben Street. Annoyingly, he didn’t get a point from the play – but probably deserved a primary assist as much as Jason Jaffray did. Sissons movements off of the puck created the goal. He was set up on the right faceoff area while the puck was behind the net – moved forward to goal – which sucked in Magnus Nygren from his left wing spot before being drawn back – then, with Nygren abandoning him, he was surrounded by Linus Froberg and Tomas Hyka. Him getting Nygren’s attention, all by skating in on the slot, allowed Street to be all alone on the left wing for a one-timed shot. I talk about it time and time again with Sissons. He just finds the perfect soft spots on the ice to create. In this case, his movement drew in three members of Färjestad BK and freed Street up for a shot. No assist for Sissons – but he did much to set the play up.

The rigorous travel will continue for Sissons now. He flew out to St. John’s late Sunday night after the Admirals played against the Chicago Wolves. Now, he basically has one day off – probably used to travel back – before the team plays on Friday against the Iowa Wild. Busy? Yes. Rewarding? Absolutely.

Catch the AHL All Star Classic? Surprised to see the AHL All Stars rock Färjestad BK like they did? What do you think about Colton Sissons and Pontus Åberg? Where do you see their careers going and could they end up playing together in the near future?

The 2014 AHL All Star Skills Competition was a rather good show last night. It pitted the AHL All Stars up against professional players from Färjestad BK of the Swedish Elite League. On the Nashville Predators organization side of things: this entire head-to-head is fun to watch because we get to see two young up and comers in the system. Colton Sissons and Pontus Åberg.

I’m very familiar with Sissons and what he can do, but this was really my first chance to sit down and watch Åberg play – and he took part in the Skills Competition a whole lot more than Sissons. So, how’d our boys do?

Åberg took part in the first event of the night: the puck control relay. This event featured a burst of speed down to one end and then a series of cones to stickhandle through en route to the finish. Åberg competed in the opening three-man relay and was the second of his group to go out. When he took off he was trailing Frederic St. Denis of the Springfield Falcons. After his turn through the course Färjestad BK had a very good cushion that helped them go on and win that first relay race. I was rather impressed by the 20-year old Swede’s explosiveness from out of the gate. His start gave him a good gap, but it was his smooth stick work on the cones that helped him out even more. Simple event. Lots of little qualities that could be measured. I liked what I saw.

The third event of the night was the Rapid Fire competition and our first look at Sissons on the Skills stage. I have to be completely honest with you. Whoever organized this event really set him up to fail. The setup of the Rapid Fire competition was two shooters, both on the opposite sides of the crease, five pucks, one shooter at a time, as quickly as they can hammer a shot. Sissons, a right handed shot, was paired with another right handed shot in Brenden Kichton of the St. John’s IceCaps. Where would the ideal place on the ice be for a right handed shooter be in this situation? The left wing. Where was Sissons placed? The right wing. Kichton went three-for-five of his attempts for goals while Sissons missed all five shots against Frederik Pettersson-Wentzel‘s glove-side. Seeing how that turned out, when most shooters after that where paired lefty and righty, seemed a bit daft.

Åberg then took part in the Hardest Shot competition and hammered a shot at 99.5 mph. Each shooter had three chances. He accomplished that on his first shot and each of his next two were weaker than the next. Nothing to really learn from something like this – but gosh darn was his teammate Magnus Nygren‘s shot of 104.6 mph awesome!

The Åberg Show continued in the next event, Accuracy Shooting. This was somewhat of a disappointment out of him. He hit the four targets on net on eight chances. That put him on equal footing for second lowest in the competition with the Rochester Americans’ Luke Adam – and one better than Ben Street of the Abbotsford Heat (who went three of eight).

The last rodeo for the two Nashville hopefuls came on the Breakaway Challenge. Sissons. Admirals. Shootout. Hey, he has some experience for this scenario at least right? In truth, this season in the shootout for the Admirals he has missed all three chances he has taken and hasn’t factored into the last four shootout games. So, up he went… forehand to backhand and stopped by Pekka Tuokkola.

Speaking of which…

Notice anything from Tuokkola’s mask yet? Well you should, because Magnus Hellberg certain does… not just once… but twice. The reason being is that Hellberg is from Uppsala, Sweden – where the story of Pelle Svanslös, aka Peter No-Tail, originates from. So, why would the Finnish goaltender Tuokkola use Pelle while playing for a Swedish team that is on the opposite side of Sweden from Uppsala? Hurm… Perhaps Hellberg is just a trendsetter? (I digress)

Next up was Åberg. He was actually forced to shoot against a familiar foe to us Admirals fans in Chicago Wolves netminder Jake Allen – the bloke who shut the door on us just this past Sunday in a shootout. Åberg skated in straight, maintained his shooting stance on the forehand the entire way in, did a shoulder pump, and fired right through Allen’s glove. It was rather impressive. I guess, so much so, he tried doing the same move later on in the sudden death portion of the event… where he fooled no one.

The AHL All Stars managed to win the Skills event against Färjestad BK in the sudden death scenario of the shootout. In heroic fashion too – I might add. With the event held in St. John’s it was cool to see captain Jason Jaffray not only score the shootout goal to force sudden death – but also the clincher. Pretty fun for the fans up there – and a great way to set the table for what should be a competitive and exciting AHL All Star Classic.

Did you catch the AHL Skills Competition? If so, what did you make of our two members of the Nashville organization? Will you be tuning in tonight for the AHL All Star Classic?