So tomorrow night, the Admirals are going to do something they haven’t done since February of 2008.

They are playing a team whose hometown is east of Toronto.

We’ll be welcoming the Charlotte Checkers to the Bradley Center for their first of four visits.

Charlotte, having played two more games than the Admirals, find themselves at the top of the Midwest Division standings going into the game on Friday.  And for some more insight on their team, we will once again call upon Jenni from the Chasing Checkers blog for a quick Q&A.

AR:  What’s the biggest difference between this team and last year’s team that took down Wilkes-Barre and Hershey in the playoffs?

CC:  The biggest difference between last year and this year is the performance of (goaltender) Mike Murphy. His play really took off during the last half of the season. He has this incredible level of confidence and play that is really a huge asset to the Checkers, where as last year there was a season long battle of who the number one goalie was. That debate was set to return this year between Justin Peters and Murphy, but with Peters early injury troubles and Murphy’s dominance, Murph is making a case for being the number one.

Additionally, the Checkers are just more experienced and have a core of guys who played together last year. The chemistry is apparent on all fronts.

AR:  Have the Checkers been playing as well as their record in the standings suggests?

CC:  Overall, the Checkers have had an impressive start. They are preventing scoring chances, and playing a style of hockey more reminiscent of playoff hockey then the sloppy stuff we usually see this early on in the season.

AR:  If you were the GM of the Canes, who do you think deserves to be called up right now?

CC:  If I called anyone up, it would be Brett Sutter, hands down. The Hurricanes organization is overflowing with scoring talent in the “young gun” category. Guys like Bowman, Dalpe, Boychuk, Jeff Skinner all have that speedy forward thing going for them, but Brett Sutter has grit. He’s a grinder, plays hard and aggressively every game, and has a skill set that is more valuable in a third or fourth line situation, which is what our call ups are usually fulfilling. Most of the young guys who have had a couple of games with the big club are getting five or six minutes a game and not really contributing in a way Brett Sutter could on the same line.

So Roundtable…how excited are you to see a new jersey for the first time in awhile?

At the Admirals home opener, we were treated to a power play that went 3/3 with the man-advantage.

Since then, they’ve converted just one power play into a goal.

For the season, it’s 4 goals on 27 chances for a 14.8% success rate.

At this point, it’s one of those stats that I can make sound really bad, or not so bad at all.

It’s the least amount of power play goals scored by any team in the league.  Okay, that doesn’t sound so great.

But their current ranking is 21st out of 30 teams.  They’ve had the least power play opportunities in the league too.  The Adirondack Phantoms have had the most in the league with 62 chances.  Although they’ve played in two more games than the Admirals, it’s kind of nuts that they’ve had more than twice the chances the Ads have had.

And the Milwaukee power play percentage?  Better than the Wolves, who are at 11.9% (5-for-42).  Also better than the Rampage, and the defending Calder Cup champs from Binghamton.

Is the power play broken?  That depends on what you look for in the power play.  Here’s what Coach Muller thinks.

So according to him, he’s not as unhappy about the power play because they’re getting chances.  They just need to be better at finishing.  Coffee is for closers.

So Roundtable, what do you think?  Do you determine whether a power play is broken strictly by success rate, or that in conjunction with whether or not they’re getting decent chances?

The Admirals made a roster move today, calling up Ben Ryan from Cincy, and sending Joel Champagne to the Cyclones.

Ryan was injured during training camp, and has spent the season so far in Cincy getting back into hockey shape.  In 3 games, he had two goals and an assist.

Champagne started out with the Admirals, and received praise from the coaches early on for playing a good North-South game.  But Champagne has seen his ice time dwindle, and often would become a victim of a shortened bench in-game.

With Ryan Thang gone, these moves still leave the Admirals with just 11 forwards on the roster.  But they’ve got until Friday to get that worked out.

Our friend Dave Boehler from the Journal-Sentinel is reporting that Ryan Thang has been called up by the Predators.

If Thang plays tomorrow night in Chicago, it’ll be his NHL debut.

Couldn’t be happier for him, as he has been great so far this season, and is a responsible two-way player that hopefully will have a small learning curve at the next level.

As for this afternoon…it leaves the Admirals with just 11 healthy forwards on the roster.  So they’ll be dressing seven defensemen.  In other words…every healthy skater on the roster will play tonight.

This makes me further question why Chris Cahill was excused to Cincy earlier this week.  Playing the last game of a 3-in-3 with a tired and shorthanded roster….would have been nice to avoid that.

Tyler Sloan has played a little bit of forward previously in his career…we’ll see if Coach Muller gives him a few shifts up front.  Honestly, with our young D, I think I’d prefer him back on the blue line.

After a tough game on their own ice Friday night, the Grand Rapids Griffins scored the first three goals tonight including a pair on the power play, as they handed the Admirals their first regulation defeat of the season.  The Admirals’ third period comeback fell short, as they lost 5-3.

Box score is here, Admirals official recap is here, and Dave Boehler’s postgame notes are here.

While it’s disappointing to walk away with the first regulation loss, Coach Muller says the guys will have a short memory.

Atte Engren surrendered 5 goals on 29 shots, but Coach Muller isn’t putting the loss on his shoulders alone.

The Griffins struck first with a power play goal.  With three Admirals within a stick’s reach of Chris Conner, Conner lifted a centering pass to Jamie Johnson who was all alone crashing the net.  Johnson deflected it out of the air and past Atte Engren.  It wasn’t played with a high stick….it was a good play.  Just a little surprised he was so wide open.

Willie Coetzee scored an even strength goal about three and a half minutes later.  Connor made a quick pass from the other side of the slot to Coetzee.  With Engren moving laterally, Coetzee was able to find enough room for it to get by Engren.

In the 2nd period, Connor got a goal of his own to go along with his two assists.  On a power play, and after a Ryan Thang shorthanded chance was foiled, Connor took a drop-pass from Mitch Callahan at the high slot, and his rifle beat Engren up high.

Juuso Puustinen got one back for the Admirals later in the period.  Kyle Wilson had a shot from a bad angle on the near side, and the rebound kicked to Puustinen in the slot.  There was some traffic in front of Joey MacDonald, and Puustinen’s shot somehow squeaked through.

Tomas Tatar made it a 4-1 lead four minutes into the third period with one of the easiest goals he will ever score.  A shot from Joakim Andersson was stopped by Engren, and he looked as though he thought he was sitting on it.  He wasn’t.  The puck was sitting on the goal line next to him.  Tatar’s stick won the race to the puck, and tapped it in the net.

Ryan Ellis answered about two minutes later with his first goal of the year.  Jani Lajunen slipped a pass to him just below the top of the far circle, and his shot beat MacDonald.

19 seconds later, Ryan Flynn fed a fantastic pass that Taylor Beck received at that blue line, and his shot from the far circle also beat MacDonald.

So it’s a 4-3 game here, the Admirals had all the momentum with 13:41 left to go in the third.   Less than a minute later, Ryan Ellis takes a tripping penalty.  Momentum KILLER.

The Admirals were able to kill the penalty off, but as the period went on, they started taking some more chances.  Both Taylor Aronson and Scott Valentine were caught up ice when Andersson sprung Gustav Nyquist on a breakaway, which he converted.

Somewhat of a taste of their own medicine for the Admirals.  Speedy forwards who were able to make the most of their opportunities.

It’s not that the Admirals didn’t have opportunities.  But a little puck luck here, a goaltender in the zone there….and it made for a frustrating night for the offense.

——–

Lines:

Bourque – Mueller – Puustinen
Wilson – Lajunen – Thang
Flynn – Van Guilder – Beck
Champagne – Latta – Stortini

They were sufficiently shuffled by the 2nd half of the second period.

– This was the first time this season the Admirals had faced a deficit larger than one goal.

– Special teams not so special.  Another goose egg on the power play (o-4 officially…but one of them was a 6 second power play at the end of the third period).  And two scores against the PK.

– Josi update….still monitoring…still day-to-day.  I’d upload the quote from the coach, but it’s nothing we haven’t heard before.

DISCUSSION:  Great to see Ellis get his first goal…but did you like his game?  Seems to be holding on to the puck for too long at times.  Do you think Smitty would have fared better tonight?  Did you like Beck’s game?  Do you think he’s developing into the power forward that the coaches want him to?  Thoughts on the Aronson/Valentine pairing?

Hey you!  Web-savvy person who likes the Admirals!

The Journal-Sentinel has decided to give our good friend Dave Boehler his own Admirals blog at JSOnline.  You should go there, you should bookmark it, and make it part of your daily reading.

This is awesome for a plethora of reasons.  Among them…

1)  Dave is the man.  He’s a great writer, and he’s one of our favorite people, even if he does like Coldplay a little more than the rest of us.

2)  More high quality Admirals coverage.  That’s a good thing, right?

3)  It’ll be fun to watch how quickly the comments sections of his posts will turn political, just like every other story on JSOnline.  The story will be about how Zach Stortini  left the game with a cut under his eye, and then the comments will find a way to turn it into a pro or anti Obamacare rant.  Or maybe it’ll be a story about an amazing 4-3 come from behind victory over the hated (but certainly not feared) Chicago Wolves, and someone will call Ryan Ellis a “union thug”.  Have fun with the comment moderating, Dave!

No, seriously, we’re delighted that Dave will have a more active role in coverage, and that the paper is giving him more space to do stuff.  There isn’t going to be a rivalry between our blogs…unless all the focus testing comes back suggesting that we start some Andy Kaufman – Jerry Lawler kind of schtick.  But I don’t think it’ll come to that.  I think both of the blogs will have something unique to contribute.

So sincerely, read his blog, comment on his posts, and keep the online conversations going about our favorite team.

To celebrate the launch of his blog, here’s a hastily thrown together Q&A, with the man…the myth…the legend, Mr. Dave Boehler….  He’s very busy tonight getting stuff together for the blog, but was cool enough to send back a few quick text messages.

AR:  So, is this to get back at me for something I did?  Because I’m not apologizing.

DB:  No apology necessary.

AR:  Was the blog your idea or the paper’s idea?

DB:  My idea.

AR:  Are you going to have the freedom to be opinionated and write what you really think?

DB:  Yes. Except for the answers to these questions.

AR:  What do you think of Coach Muller so far?

DB: As far as dealing with us media, I think he’s more laid back and willing to joke around a bit in his press conferences. Of course, I haven’t talked to him after blowing a five-goal lead yet.

AR:  Do you have a favorite Admirals moment since you started covering the team?

DB:  Any pre-game meal with steak fajitas. A close second would be covering the team in Austin last season in the playoffs.

AR:  Give the Roundtable readers your best sell as to why they should frequent your new blog.

DB:  Because they’ve asked for more coverage, and now they’ve got it.

AR:  You aren’t declaring war on us, are you?  Because that’d make things REALLY awkward in press row.  The DJ guy (Geoff Taylor) would have to keep us separated. 

DB:  Never.

AR: What’s your favorite Coldplay song, or do you just celebrate their entire catalog?

DB:  “Us Against The World” from their new CD (out this past Tuesday) is a must-listen. As far as favorites go, “The Scientist,” “Fix You,” and “Viva La Vida” are up there. And yes, I saw the “40 Year Old Virgin” movie.

Here’s a link to a story in the Montreal Gazette about Kirk Muller.  I thought it was very nicely done.  You might like it too.  Check it out.

As a postscript to the Mike Keane story Kirk tells…I can add that Mike Keane was down in the hallway leading to the locker room after the game, which is where we do our postgame  interviews.  So we’re grilling the coach after the big 4-1 opening night win (because that’s what we do….or not), and in the middle of the media session, Keane comes in and holds out his cell phone alongside our recorders, and just starts nodding along with the answers that Kirk is giving.  Kirk is so focused on questions that he doesn’t realize it’s Keane until about 10 seconds after it was over.  And then it was smiles everywhere.

Anyway….it was a neat moment.

That’s my story.  The end.