I know it’s only January….but let’s take a moment to enjoy the fact that our Admirals currently have sole possession of 1st place Western Conference.

Woo-hoo.

After spotting the Manitoba Moose a two-goal lead in the first period, the Admirals battled back, and came away with a 3-2 overtime victory Saturday night in Winnipeg.

In a game much more exciting than the one that Packer fans probably watched, it was a turnaround slapper from Linus Klasen just 29 seconds into overtime that sealed the win for Mark Dekanich and the Admirals.

After being shutout by the Moose on Thursday night, the Admirals still needed to be thawed out, as they were outshot 9-3 in the first period.  And they can’t blame the discrepancy on power play time, as Francis Charron called a Jeff Smith-esque game, assessing just three minor penalties, all in the second period.

Moose leading scorer Sergei Shirokov opened the scoring just 56 into the game with a fluky goal that he shot from behind the goalline.  He banked it in off of Dex’s pads, and the Ads were in the hole right away.

Defensemen Kevin Connauton scored on a shot that was deflected by an Admiral stick past Dekanich about ten minutes later.

During the intermission, Scott Ford rallied the troops in the locker room, and they responded in the second period outshooting the Moose 14-9, and outscoring them too.

It was actually Ford who was first to beat goaltender Eddie Lack.  It was a shot from the point the point that may or may not have been deflected by Matt Halischuk, who had a great game in front of the crease.  That line of Halischuk, Klasen, and Thang is starting to consistently provide some offensive for this team.

The Ads tied the score 2:21 into the 3rd period with a goal from Aaron Johnson, picking up the pieces of a give-and-go rush from Gabriel Bourque and Blake Geoffrion.

POINTS FOR DISCUSSION:

Don’t like how the team seems to be outshot on a somewhat regular basis, but man, they battle for every inch, and it’s good to see them stay with the gameplan after a less than pleasant start.

OT is so exciting with Klasen on the ice.  He’s got all kinds of space in the offensive zone….and then you’re a little nervous with his coverage back in the D-zone.  But he made quick work of it tonight.

Special teams?  Killed both penalties, failed on their only power play.  While it’d be nice to get the PP going, this team really seems to excel 5×5 lately.  So when refs try to be Jeff Smith, I think that works to our advantage.

Another long break until their next game, Thursday night back at the Bradley Center.

Oh, and hello from Maryland.  I’ll give your regards to Alex Ovechkin tomorrow afternoon.

This definitely wasn’t a slow news day.

With the Thuresson call-up and the Lundmark sail-setting, there was plenty to talk about at the Bradley Center Saturday night….in addition to the regularly scheduled game against the Toronto Marlies.

Scoreless through three periods and five minutes of OT, Mark Van Guilder was the only player to score in the shootout, giving the Admirals the 1-0 victory Saturday night.

You might think that since there were no goals, that it was a boring ho-hum kind of game.  That could not be farther from the truth.  Despite the low scoring affair, it was a very exciting game with lots of offensive chances for both teams thwarted by two goaltenders who resembled brick walls.

And now, I present, Coach Lambert.

The Admirals dictated play for the first period, with newly returned Linus Klasen responsible for setting up some scoring chances for others, and a few for himself.  Despite playing much of the period in the offensive zone, they only outshot the Marlies by a 7-4 margin.

The first five minutes of the second period had some swarms around the Toronto net, but Marlies goalie Ben Scrivens was able to keep the puck out.

The rest of the period belonged to the Marlies, and Mark Dekanich made a slew of NHL caliber saves, many of them involving lateral movement in the crease.  And I can’t emphasize enough how great his rebound control was throughout the whole game.

The Marlies outshot the Admirals 17-5 in the second period.

Both teams had great chances in the 3rd, as the Marlies had a pair of breakaways off of turnovers from Jon Blum and Brett Palin.  The Admirals had 49 seconds with a 5-on-3 power play, and controlled the play during the PP, but came up empty in terms of goals.

In the shootout, Linus Klasen tried a little dipsy-doo on his attempt…we’ll call it slight-of-stick….it almost worked, but he ran out of room, and lost control of the puck.

Scrivens saved Mark Santorelli’s shot, won the staring contest against Klasen, saved Halischuk’s shot, but was beaten by Van Guilder’s wrister.  Roman Josi tried Klasen’s patented slow-down play in the 5th round, but hasn’t quite mastered it yet.  Do you think Van Guilder is the odd guy in that shootout lineup?  Coach Lambert doesn’t think so.

Meanwhile Mark Dekanich faced two missed shots, a great glove save, a great right pad save, and a poke check on Mike Zigomanis to seal the deal in the 5th round.

————-

LINES:

Bourque – Geoffrion – Santorelli
Klasen – Halischuk – Thang
Wilson – Hunter – Gendur
Flynn – Van Guilder – Bartlett

Discussion points:

– Anyone miss Lundmark or Thuresson?  Coach didn’t really want to talk about it after the game, but here was his comment.

– How about those missed checks by the Marlies tonight?  Ever seen a player miss and then go head first into their own bench?

– Dekanich.  Talk about a guy who was in the zone tonight.

– Klasen.  Bit of a puck hog tonight.  Lots of skating with the puck, but the Marlies gave him a TON of room to work.  Would prefer that he get rid of the puck instead of turning around and reversing course so much.  But there were some signs of creativity that on some nights will turn in to goals for him or his teammates.  Here’s Coach Lambert on Klasen’s night.

– Only 17 shots on goal during regulation for the Admirals.  They had a lot of blocked shots, but still.  Tough to win when that few are getting through.

– Not liking Blum’s turnovers lately.

– The tweet of the night comes from the Norfolk Admirals.  The original tweet has been taken down….but the apology is still up.  The “I” and the “O” keys are so close to each other, and if you’re typing real fast…..you might have to make this apology sometime too.

“WOW. I apologize for that typo, everyone. Gudas took a SHOT. He took a SHOT.”

– And I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate Sutty’s team, the Seattle Freaking Seahawks, for keeping the dream alive that a 7-9 team MIGHT win the Super Bowl.  All hell would break loose, and it would be beautiful!

See ya’ll back here tomorrow.