The Milwaukee Admirals lost 5-4 in overtime on the road against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Friday night at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza.
Despite a first period hat trick by Garrett Wilson for the Penguins the Admirals were able to fight back and force overtime by the end of regulation. The Admirals battled so strongly in the third period to earn a point tonight but Jean-Sébastien Dea would get a shot high glove on Juuse Saros for the game-winning goal in overtime tonight. The win for the Penguins snapped a two-game skid and goes down as the first career win for goaltende Colin Stevens.
1 June 2004, that was the start of the 2004 AHL Calder Cup Finals between the Milwaukee Admirals and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The Admirals won the first two games in Milwaukee before completing the sweep on the road in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to earn the first and, to this point, only Calder Cup. Tonight will be the first time the Admirals journey back to face the Penguins in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton since that moment.
The Nashville Predators have recalled Anders Lindbäck and reassigned Juuse Saros to the Milwaukee Admirals. This is the second time that the organization has flipped both goaltenders. The Predators host the Vancouver Canucks tonight at the Bridgestone Arena. Meanwhile, the Admirals are set for a Friday-Saturday clash against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and Hershey Bears.
Nashville, Tenn. (November 30, 2017) – Nashville Predators President of Hockey Operations/General Manager David Poile announced Thursday that the club has recalled goaltender Anders Lindback from the American Hockey League’s Milwaukee Admirals. Additionally, the club has reassigned goaltender Juuse Saros to Milwaukee.
Lindback leads the AHL in wins with 11 and is seventh in save percentage with a .925 mark. He’s posted a 2.32 goals-against average and 11-4-0 record in 15 starts to go with one shutout for the Admirals this season, who sit in second place in the AHL’s Central Division. Lindback began the AHL campaign with five consecutive victories and made 40 saves in his last start with Milwaukee on Nov. 28, leading the Admirals to a 4-2 win over the Iowa Wild.
Originally drafted by the Predators in the seventh round (207th overall) in the 2008 NHL Draft, Lindback returned to Nashville this summer after signing a one-year contract. The Gavle, Sweden, native spent two seasons with the Predators from 2010-12, going 28-16-13 with a 2.53 goals-against average, .914 save percentage and two shutouts in 38 games. The 6-foot-6 goaltender spent last season with Rogle BK of the Swedish Hockey League, where he posted a .916 save percentage in 23 games. Lindback has a 45-58-8 record in 130 career NHL games with Nashville, Tampa Bay, Buffalo, Dallas and Arizona.
Much like the first happenstance with these two switching places: it is not clear if this move is for the weekend or for an extended amount of time. On the first occurrence Saros stepped in for a weekend road trip with the Admirals as they faced, and lost, to the Cleveland Monsters. Saros stopped 45/52 shots in the pair of games with the Admirals. He was backing up the team at one of the rougher stretches of the season for them to date.
Saros has since made a single start for the Predators. He took a shootout loss on the road against the Carolina Hurricanes. That was his first shootout loss in his North American professional playing career as he had previously gone on a run of five wins in five AHL shootout appearances while only allowing a single shootout goal from sixteen attempts.
What are your thoughts on this goalie switch? Should this be made a more permanent move or is this once again a temporary “for the weekend” switch?
The Milwaukee Admirals are now through two months of the 2017-18 season. While there was plenty to be upbeat about in October the same couldn’t be said in November. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good. It was just a constant of ups and downs which ended in a record of 6-6-0-0 (12 points, 0.500 points percentage). Yet, even in some of the rough stretches, it is hard to argue against who the best performer was in November. And that is why The Real Estate Center‘s Admiral of the Month Award for November belongs to Anders Lindbäck.
The Milwaukee Admirals won 4-2 on the road against the Iowa Wild at the Wells Fargo Arena on Tuesday night.
It’s been awhile since the depth pieces for the Admirals really factored into the offensive efforts. That would change tonight as Mark Zengerle recorded a three-point night and Trevor Mingoia would score on his Milwaukee Admirals debut for his first career AHL goal. This all happened in front of, once again, another gem for Anders Lindbäck who made forty saves to win his eleventh game from fifteen starts.
The Nashville Predators have officially terminated their ECHL affiliation agreement with the Norfolk Admirals. This news comes on the back of a few roster moves that were head scratchers. There is no longer a mystery as to why Rick Pinkston and Matt O’Connor are Atlanta Gladiators bound. This partnership, which was announced in early-May and is two months into its course during the 2017-18 season, is over.
And thus begins the long and winding road. The Milwaukee Admirals are embarking on their last game in the month of November tonight. A win would mean going 0.500 on the month but, more importantly, would be setting the right tone for the start of a serious amount of time out on the road. The Admirals are about to endure nine of their next eleven games on the road and the month ahead of them will see only four home games played. If things are going to change for the better it will need to get started on the road. That starts tonight against the Iowa Wild at the Wells Fargo Arena.
The Milwaukee Admirals are about to embark on quite the lengthy spell on the road. They will play nine of their next eleven games away from the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena. Before doing that they’ve made some roster moves by recalling forward Trevor Mingoia from the Norfolk Admirals (ECHL) and also loaning both Matt O’Connor and Rick Pinkston to the Atlanta Gladiators (ECHL).
The Milwaukee Admirals are nearly through the opening two months of the 2017-18 season. They hold a 10-8-0-0 record (20 points, 0.556 points percentage) and are currently fourth in the Central Division and eighth in the Western Conference standings. The Admirals might have started off the season winning four straight games but they have only won consecutive games on one occasion since then – and that came this past week in a shootout and overtime win. It has been a stop-start, lose-win vortex in which the Admirals can’t really get on a roll.
Though, despite this up-and-down start, there has been a real constant throughout the Admirals season: Anders Lindbäck. The 29-year old from Gävle, Sweden has been brilliant from the start of the season and has been the best and most consistent player in Milwaukee by a good margin.
A season ago he only had a PTO contract with the Ontario Reign to get himself going and found himself needing to return back to the Swedish ranks of hockey after 4 games in the AHL. Come one-year later he has made 14 starts in the AHL and has a 2.35 goals against average, 0.923 save percentage, and shutout to his name. Plus, Lindbäck is currently tied with Garret Sparks of the Toronto Marlies for the most wins by a goaltender (10) in the entire league.
It begs the question. Why isn’t Lindbäck the goaltender of choice right now to be the back-up goaltender of the Nashville Predators?
It is performances such as last night’s game where I really force myself to take a step back and evaluate what it was that the Milwaukee Admirals did and didn’t do. The knee jerk reaction would be the obvious: they didn’t score. The not so obvious would be to suggest that, for all that happened, the Admirals really didn’t play that poorly of a game. Yes, the power-play was rough. Yes, the Manitoba Moose earned a 3-0 shutout win on the night. But the Admirals showed a lot more right than wrong and just irritatingly had a few hiccups in the narrative that cast aside what could have been a sweep for the three-game homestand.
Admirals Roundtable 