(Photo credit to Scott Paulus)

The Admirals lost 4-3 in overtime to the Abbotsford Heat Tuesday night. The Heat, who have the best record in the AHL, were able to fight back from a two goal deficit to win in OT. The Ads started the game quick with goals from Austin Watson, Simon Moser, and Miikka Salomaki, but were just not able to come up with win as the Heat came to life in the third period.

“We had tons of chances to score and couldn’t finish,” said Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason. “Their goalie played good. Couple of goals that maybe we’d want back as a team. Not only our goalie but as a team we made mistakes and it ended up in our net. I don’t think you could say [the Heat] outplayed us in the third period. We had our opportunities. We didn’t put them away.”

The Ads haven’t been known for quick starts this season. Up against the best team in the AHL the Ads managed to come out of the opening period with a 2-0 lead.

Austin Watson scored the opening goal of the game off a rush from the right wing into goal. Passes from Bryan Rodney up to Miikka Salomaki tapped on to Watson sent the forward loose into the attacking zone. The Heat defense nearly stick checked the puck off Watson but a toe-drag and a quick wrist shot later – the Ads were up 1-0.

A late boarding penalty put the Admirals power-play unit on the ice with 1:07 remaining in the first period. A face off win and quick passes –circling from the point to the right face off dot– teed up Simon Moser for a one-timer and his third goal of the season. The period ended with the Ads up 2-0. Entering tonight, they were 3-0-0-0 when leading after the opening period of play. Again, quick starts aren’t a frequent occurrence for the Admirals but -backs against the wall tonight- they got one.

In the second period the Heat produced their first goal of the game off of a power-play. The penalty was a high sticking call against Kevin Henderson and the Ads nearly killed it off. Yet, the Heat put the hammer down and a one-timer off the left faceoff dot by Blair Jones made it a 2-1 hockey game.

Miikka Salomaki kept his hot night going by scoring a beauty of a goal to give the Ads a two-goal cushion. Salomaki, who had assisted the first two goals of the game, had defenders surrounding him and he let fly with a shot that beat Ortio to his blocker-side and belted the near post for his third goal of the season.

“That’s probably [Salomaki’s] best game,” said Evason. “Obviously, he has a great goal but hounding the puck, stick skills, his competitiveness, he finishes every check. You wish every hockey player played the way that he plays the game.”

The third period began with a 3-1 Ads lead. The Heat, just as they would have hoped, were able to cut the lead down to one with plenty of the third still to play for. Markus Granlund was able to score with just over fifteen-minutes remaining to make it a 3-2 game.

Abbotsford tied the game up midway through the third period after a quick counter attack overwhelmed the Ads defense. Greg Nemisz’s shot on goal appeared to take a deflection as the puck’s flight path knuckled low under the glove of Hellberg to make it 3-3.

The Ads did have some chances to finish off the game in OT. Two come to mind. Both from Anthony Bitetto in the space of about five-seconds. Bitetto had a quick paced run on goal and one-timed a shot into the pads of Joni Ortio in net. Right after that chance, Bitetto sat on the side of Ortio’s net, fired a close-range shot, and was robbed. Two high quality chances for Bitetto in a matter of seconds with no reward.

Sadly for Bitetto the bad news kept coming for him as he took a high sticking penalty with 1:50 left in OT. The Heat, sensing the moment, called timeout to draw up a play for the 4-on-3 power-play chance. They won the draw. Boom. Ben Street tallied the game-winner for his team best ninth goal of the season.

“We lost the draw,” said Evason of the goal in OT. “We allowed their guy to walk into a prime scoring position. Although it gets deflected off of Joe [Piskula’s] stick he shouldn’t have been allowed to shoot in that spot.”

While the Ads did come up shy of a victory in this game there was plenty to be happy about with this result. The Ads had a great first two period of hockey – especially the first. Unfortunate to not come away with the win, but the Heat have now won ten of their last eleven games. This was always going to be a tough grinder of a game. To have actually outplayed the Heat through two period is a result and the performance bodes really well for tomorrow night’s match up with yet another high-powered offense, the Griffins.

Thoughts on the game? Who impressed you tonight? Who didn’t impress you tonight? What does this game have you thinking in regards to tomorrow night’s game with the Griffins? Will they be able to repeat their previous results against the Griffins tomorrow?

The Admirals managed to shutout the Iowa Wild 1-0 on the road Saturday night. Scott Darling, making his second career AHL start, earned his first AHL decision with a 32 save shutout victory on the road. The lone goal of the game came late in the first period off of a Colton Sissons redirection for his seventh goal of the season.

The news going into this one was interesting to follow. Just prior to the game it was announced that Magnus Hellberg suffered a “lower body” injury during the middle of last night’s 4-3 loss to the Chicago Wolves. He played through the rest of that game and did travel with the team to Iowa. Yet, he was officially listed as “out” for this game.

Filling in for him, as the emergency goalie, was 46-year old coach, off-ice official, and Des Moines area resident Derek Hender. This wasn’t the first time Hender has served in this capacity in Iowa this year. He filled in as an emergency goalie for the Texas Stars earlier this month.

This meant Scott Darling was going to get the start in net and his response was really good. He faced a total of 32 shots. Didn’t allow many rebounds. Denied the Wild on a few breakaway and odd-man rush opportunities. And he held the fort in the dying seconds of the game when the Wild had a power-play with the extra-attacker on the ice. The shutout victory goes down as his first career AHL decision in net.

The lone goal of the game came after a rather tame first period for both sides. The Admirals goal came with less than three minutes remaining in the first period thanks to a deflection. Joonas Jarvinen’s shot to the net bounced off of Colton Sissons’ skate, fooling Darcy Kuemper in net, and giving the Ads a first period lead. The goal for Sissons is his team-leading seventh goal of the season.

The action picked up big time in the late stages of regulation. With four minutes remaining and the Admirals on the power-play Darling was required to deny a shorthanded effort. Miikka Salomaki tossed a puck towards Anthony Bitetto and it managed to get in-behind him. Racing after and claiming the loose puck was Jake Dowell who was then off on a shorthanded breakaway. Darling made a crucial stop to keep it 1-0 and bail out the failed connection from Salomaki to Bitetto.

With 1:02 remaining, Ads defenseman Bryan Rodney was called for holding and the Wild decided to take their timeout and pull their goalie. The Wild did establish some pucks to the net but they passed themselves out of the attacking zone and then went offsides with seventeen seconds remaining.

The best chances to win the game for the Wild were behind them the moment the puck left the zone. The Ads managed to hang on by the strength of Scott Darling and a deflection off of Colton Sissons to get the Ads back in the win column.

Thoughts on Scott Darling’s performance tonight? How good of a response was this by the team after a less than stellar game against the Wolves just 24 hours prior? If Hellberg is out for an extended period of time do you now feel confident that Darling could hold down the net in that time? Though the defense was good tonight, any concerns in the offense only scoring one goal from thirty-four shots tonight?

(Photo credit to Scott Paulus)

The Admirals lost 4-3 against the Chicago Wolves Friday night. Another slow start meant the team had to climb out of yet another 2-0 deficit in the first period at home. While it happened twice against the Texas Stars during the opening homestand – it couldn’t be done tonight. The Wolves went on to win their fourth-straight game on the road.

“Our starts have been pretty good as of late, but we didn’t like our entire game from the drop of the puck,” said Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason. “Regardless of where we were when it got 2-0 we didn’t do anything to be involved and give ourselves a chance to even score a goal.”

This game started off with that little element of chippiness you come to expect from an Amtrak Rivalry game. After Anthony Bitetto decided to play the man and not the puck, Cody Beach of the Wolves skated over and talked up a fight. Bitetto passed on the opportunity but Tousignant decided he would have a go. They wound up calling matching roughing calls between Beach-Tousignant but tagged Beach with an additional for his antics with Bitetto.

Response? Poor.

The Wolves turned that Admiral power-play into a shorthanded goal. After Bitetto made a great sliding effort to block a shot, Nathan Longpre stuck to the play and banked the puck off of Chris Porter and past Magnus Hellberg in net.

After another successful Wolves penalty kill they beat Hellberg again. This goal came right off of the kill with Dmitrij Jaskin managing to slide the puck underneath the big Swede in net and make it a 2-0 hockey game.

“You have those games sometimes where you come out a little flat,” commented Taylor Beck. “They hopped on us early and they did a good job. They came to play. We have to be a lot more sharper with our passing and with our detail. They took advantage of our mistakes early and we couldn’t catch up to them.”

Captain Scott Ford answered back with his first goal of the season and first as an Admiral since March 16, 2012 in Lake Erie. Ford ripped a shot from the point and into traffic. The puck took a deflection off of a Wolves stick and even clanked off the far post before finding twine.

Just over five minutes later the Wolves restored their two-goal lead. The Admiral defensively were spread thin in front of Hellberg. Prior to the series of passes that would net the goal, Bitetto took a stick to the back of his knee and tripped right in front of the Ads goal. There wasn’t a call for tripping, but the move lead to some open ice for the Wolves who played a tic-tac-toe game between Shane Harper-Tyler Shattock-Pat Cannone. The passing was crisp. The shot by Cannone wasn’t going to be denied. 3-1 Wolves.

One thing worthy of mention: boarding penalties. This game saw four of them. The worst of which came at the tail end of the first period when Miikka Salomaki blasted Sergey Andronov into the boards directly in front of the Admirals bench. Andronov stayed down and hunched over for quite awhile before heading behind the Wolves bench. He did manage to return to the game… hockey players, right?

There weren’t many highlights in the second period. Save for this one. After losing the draw on a power-play faceoff, Tyler Shattock attempted to get the puck as clear as he could. His problem: Scott Valentine… who checked him hard enough to pry open the Admirals penalty box door. The hit was so violent that play had to be stopped temporarily after an off-ice official could be treated after the door swung open and clipped him in the penalty box.

Much more action occurred in the third period and started with the Ads narrowing the Wolves lead to 3-2. The Admirals power-play responded with a beautiful pass from Colton Sissons that teed up Taylor Beck for his fourth goal of the season. Considering how eventful this past week has been for Beck the goal showed some good poise and maturity on his part dealing with the ying-yang effect these past few days.

“It was a quick week up [in Nashville],” said Beck. “Happy to be back. Happy to hopefully help [the Admirals] start winning again. It’s been a little bit rough lately but we have a good team here and we’ll be really good down the stretch.”

With 2:13 remaining following an offsides call that kept the puck in the Wolves defensive zone, the Ads used their timeout and decided to pull Hellberg in favor of using the extra attacker. There were some looks to the net, but the game was effectively capped off when Corey Locke popped in an empty netter with 1:01 remaining in the game.

“We wanted to give ourselves the best and the longest opportunity,” said Evason of the decision to pull Hellberg during the timeout. “Normally you’re going to pull the goalie at 1:40-ish. Some coaches, 1:30. We like the two minute mark. Why not give ourselves the chance to have some sustained pressure? We want to side on the side of being aggressive and giving our group an opportunity to score.”

Credit to the Ads, though. The “never say die” attitude still showed up with a Tousignant goal with 25 seconds remaining. A sharp pass from the corner by Joonas Rask picked out the Quebec native who made a slick move to beat Allen in net. While nothing more than a late consolation goal in a defeat – it’s still nice to see the team refuse to quit on a game.

“We knew that [the Wolves] are a veteran hockey club,” said Evason. “[The Wolves] come to play. They know how to play the game and they out-competed us. We don’t say that very often about our group.”

Thoughts on the game? What is it about these slow starts for the Ads? How do you feel Taylor Beck played in his return to Milwaukee? What players are standing out to you – both in a good way and a bad way? What will the response be tomorrow night in Iowa?

(Photo credit to Scott Paulus)

The Admirals won 2-1 against the red hot Grand Rapids Griffins Wednesday night. An early goal from Colton Sissons and a late third period tally from Mark Van Guilder proved decisive as the Ads break a run of three consecutive losses.

“Grand Rapids is a real good team,” commented Milwaukee Admirals head coach Dean Evason. “They have so much speed and skill. We thought we did a real good job through the neutral zone. We limited their speed. We didn’t give them the odd man rushes that I think they’re used to. When we can play tight like that we should be in a good spot most nights.”

Slow starts have plagued the Ads so far this season. Facing a skilled Griffins team, the Ads made sure to buck that trend by scoring one-minute and fifteen seconds into the game.

The starting line of Salomaki-Watson-Rask kicked off the game by pushing the puck in the Griffins zone, generating shots and turnovers, and helped keep the puck deep as they changed lines. Moser-Sissons-Forsberg entered the ice and instantly attacked the net. After a few good taps at Griffins netminder Tom McCollum the puck went past him thanks to a final push from Colton Sissons. That’s Sissons sixth goal of the season and ties him up with Anthony Bitetto for the team lead in goals.

Grand Rapids, for as hot as they have been coming into the game, started pretty flat. They didn’t register a shot on goal until the twelfth minute of the game. Right after that Gustav Nyquist took a tripping penalty to stunt that momentum that wouldn’t creep back into the first period until the Griffins first power-play. Shots would finish 13-7 in the first period, but the best quality chances were coming off the tape of Admirals sticks.

The second period was cruising by without much drama. Through eight minutes in the second period shots were only 3-1 in the period in favor of the Griffins. For an Admirals team that faced a second period shots total of 20, 20, and 17 in the previous three road games… that’s fantastic defensive work against a team as lethal as the Griffins.

After a scramble in front of Magnus Hellberg, Mitch Callahan of the Griffins fired a loose puck near post at Hellberg. The light was lit but the celebrations were mute and the officials began conversing. There was plenty of pressure on Hellberg’s doorstep, but, upon further review, they called it a good goal to tie the game at 1-1.

Midway through the third period the Ads nearly capitalized on the power-play if not for the awareness of Landon Ferraro. The Ads power-play unit wasn’t having much luck tonight, going 0-4, but in the final seconds of a man-advantage Sissons tagged a puck through McCollum in net. The puck was in the crease making its way past the goal line. Right in front to bail out his netminder, Ferraro gave one firm smack at the puck to clear it out of danger and keep the game tied.

As the ice tilted for the Ads, Mark Van Guilder picked up the eventual game-winning goal to make it 2-1. The team was working hard in the attacking zone when Kevin Henderson’s shot to the net ricocheted off of McCollum and near Van Guilder. MVG, who was working traffic in front of the net, skated out, snagged the puck, and wristed low putting the puck beneath the flustered Griffins goalie for the go-ahead and decisive goal.
With the Griffins net empty, they did manage a few quality looks to the net amidst tight defensive pressure by the Admirals. Badge of honor goes to the game’s first star recipient, Sissons, who made two big shot blocks to close out the game… the last of which looked downright painful to watch.

Hats off to Hellberg. After having a rough -probably rusty- return to the net on the Texas leg of the four game road trip – Hellberg managed to stop 28-29 shots on goal to earn his first AHL victory since the second game of the season. While his stay up in Nashville might have opened his mind his reflexes and timing were just a bit off in his two appearances against the Texas Stars. He made a good start in a shootout loss to San Antonio, but still faced a total of 93 shots in three days of work after a lengthy lay off while up in Nashville.

“It was a great experience to be up [in Nashville], practice with the guys, and see how it was in the show,” said Magnus Hellberg. “At the same time you have to play games to develop. You kind of lose that feeling pretty quickly when you don’t play. I think in a way it was good that we got a lot of shots on us this last weekend – even though it was a tough one. I didn’t play my best game on Friday. I felt a little bit more like my normal me on Sunday even though we lost in a shootout. Today we won 2-1 and the boys battled hard. It was a step in the right direction.”

Tonight, the team looked really composed defensively against an outstanding Grand Rapids Griffins group that entered the game on fire by winning seven-straight games. There were many positives to take from tonight’s game. The top two lines tonight (Salomaki-Watson-Rask / Moser-Sissons-Forsberg) were outstanding on both sides of the puck. The penalty kill was sharp tonight going 3-3 in kills with great efforts by both Joe Piskula and Scott Ford on the back end denying several attempts to deal the puck around the cage and catch Hellberg off balance.

The negatives could still be a wavering in consistency during the second period. The road trip’s worst period seemed to be the second period and tonight that was also the case as they were outshot by the Griffins 15-3 in the period. No telling what the real cause is, but the response in the third period was rather good. Shots were in the Ads favor, 16-7, and the space to roam wasn’t really there for the Griffins.

This is what I call a well-deserved win for the effort out on the ice tonight.

Thoughts on the game? Has Sissons been the Ads best forward this season? Is Magnus Hellberg back up to speed? Why do you feel there is a drop off in the second period and what can be done about it? Will Filip Forsberg still be an Admiral come Friday night?