Here is a six-pack of AHL end of season awards announced recently (Though all of the candidates listed are plenty deserving, only three teams are represented and not a single western team won an award, despite great seasons from Milwaukee and Houston):

Binghamton forward Corey Locke won the AHL’s Most Valuable Player Award (Les Cunningham Award).

Cody Bass of the Senators won the AHL’s Man of the Year Award (Yanick Dupre Award).

John Hynes of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton won the AHL’s Coach of Year Award (Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award).

Penguins netminder Brad Thiessen won the AHL’s Outstanding Goaltender Award (Aldege “Baz” Bastien Award).

Marc-Andre Gragnani of Portland won the AHL’s Outstanding Defenseman Award (Eddie Shore Award).

Pirates forward Luke Adam won the AHL’s Rookie of Year Award (Dudley “Red” Garrett Award).

Roundtable what are your thoughts?

Doesn’t Lane Lambert deserve to be at least a co-winner of the Coach of the Year Award for his masterful job guiding the Milwaukee Admirals this year?

The math is simple for Milwaukee.  The Admirals sit in first place in the West Division at 98 points, two points ahead of Houston, that only has one game remaining (Sunday against Oklahoma City).  The Aeros and Lake Erie are the only two teams that can catch Milwaukee in the Western Conference and the only way either can is by winning out and having the Admirals not pick up a single point this weekend.

Therefore, all Milwaukee needs is one more point to clinch the West Division title and first place in the Western Conference outright.  No matter what happens, the Admirals will have home ice for the first round of the AHL playoffs.  This weekend Milwaukee hosts Texas and Grand Rapids, sandwiched around a road game at Peoria.  With all the new faces joining the Admirals in the past two weeks, Milwaukee coach Lane Lambert will be looking to get that point out of the way against Texas so he can be creative with his lines over the weekend.

Below Milwaukee and Houston in the Western Conference lies Hamilton, Manitoba and Lake Erie.  All five of those teams have clinched playoff spots.  That leaves three places up for grabs going into the final weekend.  Sitting with 90 points each, Texas and Peoria seem likely to get in, leaving one final berth that five clubs get to fight for.

Oklahoma City owns the inside track, sitting at 87 points with three games left, followed by Chicago (86, 3 GR), San Antonio (85, 3 GR), Abbotsford (84, 3 GR) and Grand Rapids (82, 3 GR).

Some huge games tonight should go a long way in sorting things out.  On the playoff bubble, Oklahoma City is at San Antonio, while Peoria hosts Chicago.  The loser of Abbotsford at Grand Rapids will likely see their season end, while Texas can essentially clinch with two points against Milwaukee.  Lake Erie must win at Rockford to have any chance of catching the Admirals.

So enjoy the game tonight Admirals fans, but I would suggest keeping one eye on the out of town scoreboard while you watch.

So Roundtable, who makes the playoffs and who gets left out? (I think Texas, Peoria and Oklahoma City get in, leaving Chicago and San Antonio out–a complete change from my predictions last week)

Which team would you prefer Milwaukee face in the first round of the AHL playoffs?

So, you?  You’re Coach Lambert.

You’ve done a pretty good  job getting this team to where they are right now, so, um, thanks!

But now you’ve got lots of new guys on the roster, and you may have a couple more guys coming back down from Nashville once Sully and Cal are in good shape.

You’ve got quite the schoolyard lot of forwards.

So you’ve got to assemble four forward lines.  GO!

Blake Geoffrion, Ryan Thang, Ryan Flynn, Mark Santorelli, Andreas Thuresson
Cory Conacher, Chris Mueller, Gabriel Bourque, Mike Bartlett, Taylor Beck,
Steve Begin, Michael Latta, Mark Van Guilder, Austin Watson, Matt Halischuk

(I left Hunter, Shields, Wilson, and Klasen off the list…but feel free to throw them in your lines if you want.  While suggesting this exercise, I remain, not the boss of you.)

Would you slide Halischuk back in on the Bourque-Mueller line?  Or play him with Geoffrion and someone else?  Would you like to see the two Guelph ATO’s together, or is there more to gain from them playing with some more veteran players?  Do you keep the lines we’ve been having for awhile now and just make minor changes?  If you want to see the young guys, who gets scratched?

With all of the recent additions to Milwaukee Admirals lineup, anther potential fresh face who could be joining the Western Conference’s first place club is Madison native Craig Smith, who recently finished his sophomore season at the University of Wisconsin.

In 2010-2011 Smith had a breakout year as a power forward with the Badgers, scoring 19 goals and 43 points, while spending 82 minutes in the penalty box.  Soon after the season the Wisconsin State Journal’s Andy Baggot reported that Smith would likely return to Wisconsin for his junior season.  However, unlike teammate Justin Schultz, Smith’s decision to return has yet to be an emphatic one.

Badgers coach Mike Eaves would like to see Smith (Nashville’s fourth-round draft pick in 2009) hone his game for at least one more year in Madison.

“From a hockey standpoint, Craig has a lot of natural physical gifts,” Eaves said. “But what he could improve on with one more year of college hockey is to become a more a cerebral player, enhance his understanding of game and gain the confidence he needs to be successful at the next level.”

Eaves would like to see Smith expand upon the progress he’s already made at the U.W.

“He’s become a lot smarter player, who is a lot more effective away from the puck, (especially as) one of our primary penalty killers,” Eaves said.  “We moved him to center this year because that position has a lot more responsibilities down low in our zone and we’ve seen great growth from him in those areas.  We fully expect that to keep going next year.”

Get ready for some more new faces on the roster.

While the Admirals were entertaining Peoria last night, Saginaw was clinching their playoff series against Guelph in the OHL.  So Taylor Beck and Michael Latta’s junior seasons are complete, and they are on their way to Milwaukee.  They may be able to make their debuts on Wednesday, but they need to officially be released by Guelph first.  We think that’ll happen on Tuesday, but it’ll happen when it happens.

It was one of those series’ where it shows how momentum can just turn on a dime, and the series can take a whole new path.  Leading the series 2 games to 1, Guelph had a 2-0 lead in game 4 before the game was five minutes old.  And then a Saginaw shorthanded goal early in the second period sparked a four goal explosion in the middle frame that eventually led to a 4-3 Saginaw win.  Saginaw took game 5, and then had a 6-2 lead in game 6 with 16 minutes to play.  Guelph scored three times the rest of the way, thanks in part to some time on the power play, but Saginaw hung on to take the series.

Latta had five goals and five assists in the six games.  Beck had three goals and five assists.

Meanwhile, Ryan Ellis’ Windsor Spitfire team will play game 7 of their series tomorrow night against Erie.  Windsor was up 3 games to 1, but Erie took the next two games in overtime to force game 7.

Ellis has three goals and four assists in six games so far.

TUESDAY NIGHT UPDATE:

Windsor won game seven, scoring the game winning goal with 2:48 left in the game.  Ellis had a power play goal and an assist in the game.

Brock McBride and Jamie Bates were released from their PTO contracts on Sunday.

McBride had a goal and an assist in 14 games with the Admirals, and Bates registered an assist in eight games.

With all the ATO’s in town, there just weren’t enough minutes to go around.  Fair or not, they lost the numbers game.

Scheduling quirks can be annoying.  But the Admirals find themselves as the beneficiaries this weekend.

After playing the Chicago Wolves in Houston on Thursday, the Aeros travelled to Milwaukee on Friday in time for their game.

And after playing the San Antonio Rampage in Texas last night, the Peoria Rivermen are travelling to Milwaukee today to finish their three games in three days set.

The Admirals did sign another player to an ATO contract, as reported by Creed Feed yesterday.  Cory Conacher is your newest Admiral.  A 5’8 forward who just finished his senior season at Canisius College, where he was their leading scorer for the past two seasons.  Conacher played two games with the Rochester Americans last week, was then assigned to the Cyclones.  He then proceeded to score five goals and two assists in three games in Cincy.  Actually, all of his points came in the first two games.

That’s one way to get noticed.

Conacher will wear #13 for Milwaukee.

The Admirals can clinch the West Division title today, with a win and a Texas loss (any variety) to Rockford.  Or with one point against Peoria, and a Texas regulation loss to Rockford.

If the season ended today, the Admirals would play Oklahoma City in the first round, Peoria would crossover to the North Division, and Chicago would crossover to the driving range.

I’ll be the first to admit that I was wrong.  I didn’t think they’d see the ice this soon, or maybe even at all.

They’ve been here two days, and Austin Watson and Chris Cahill will be making their pro debuts tonight versus the Houston Aeros.

Watson will wear #42.  Cahill will wear #15.

This just in on the rumor-wire…the Milwaukee Admirals are relocating south.

According to a press release, the Nashville Predators have decided to abruptly move their top American Hockey League affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals.   The Admirals relocation, effective at the end of season, would end Nashville’s long time relationship with Milwaukee that started soon after the Predators became an NHL expansion franchise in 1997.

The top two candidates for relocation for the historic minor league franchise are either Chattanooga, Tennessee where the team would be called the “Chattanooga Choo-Choos” or to Knoxville where the team would take the name the “Knoxville Gold,” as perhaps a parting shot directed toward Marquette University.  A long shot choice for the relocation would be Memphis, where Elvis has just left the building.

Predators officials have decided that their organization would best be served with having their AHL team closer to their home base, along the lines of the Toronto Marlies or Rockford Ice Hogs.  The idea of using the team to generate more interest in hockey in the state of Tennessee also played a part in the decision.  Therefore by 2025, Nashville, now captained by then NHL-legend Blake Geoffrion (who long since become the greatest scoring member of the illustrious Geoffrion family), could have an entire team made up of home state natives in an attempt to rival the Doug Woog days at the University of Minnesota.

Milwaukee coach Lane Lambert could not be reached for comment, but was overheard leaving the Bradley Center locker room stating that he would look forward to the warmer weather and not having to deal with snow in April.

However, two things from the press release remain unclear.  The first is how the AHL would choose to realign the franchise.  Since the league has finally decided that having a team in Abbotsford, British Columbia wasn’t such a bright idea, the Heat are also exploring relocation possibilities.  The second was whether now hockey-less Milwaukee could be an eventual destination for either the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes or Atlanta Thrashers as a replacement tenant for the Admirals.

There will be more to come on this developing story, but sadly no fresh information after April 1st.  YES this is an April Fools story…Enjoy the game tonight, huge battle for first place with Houston and that’s no joke.

In a surprise announcement at Roundtable Headquarters, Ryan Miller has been fired from his position as Editor-in-Chief of the blog known as Admirals Roundtable.

Roundtable President & CEO Max Power IV made the announcement as the Admirals prepare for a major tilt against the Houston Aeros Friday night.

“We felt it was time to make a change.  We thank Ryan for his service to the Roundtable, but at this point, it was determined that we needed to take this blog in a new direction.”

According to Power, Miller’s attitude towards some of the players put him at odds with blog management.

“I mean, you’ve read the stuff that he writes, right?  Sometimes, I don’t even know if he likes the team.  I for one, am not a fan of how he wrote about Blake Geoffrion.  That guy is the best feel good story the organization has had in a long time!  I don’t remember the last time Ryan wrote ANYTHING nice about him!

“I just wish he would have…you know…toed the company line a little bit more.  Everyone’s entitled to their opinions, but that guy was a little too ‘big picture’ for what we’re trying to do here.  Leave objectivity for the mainstream media outlets.  You’re either behind this team or you aren’t.  There ain’t no third direction.  We don’t need any realists around here.”

Power said that negotiations are almost finalized for Miller’s replacement.

“We’ll be sending a contract offer over to Meg McKenzie this morning.  We hope to get her on board as soon as possible.”

Miller could not be reached for comment.  But Eric Kent, Miller’s former co-author at the Admirals Short Shifts blog, released this statement.

“What a sad day for the sport of hockey, and for the Admirals community.  My heart goes out to Ryan and his family, who will probably need to start PAYING to watch hockey again.  But you know, I think they’ll be okay.  I think everything will be back to normal tomorrow.  When it’s April 2nd.”