Looks like there is more hardware on the way for Blake Geoffrion.
The Milwaukee rookie picked up his second straight Reebok/AHL Player of the Week Award this morning.
Clearly deserving, Blake has been tearing up the offense as of late for Milwaukee. What is more impressive, Geoffrion became the first player in 16 years to win the honor in consecutive weeks.
Congrats to Blake and congrats to the Packers for a memorable night in Dallas.
Today like everyday, is a great day to be in Wisconsin and a great day for hockey.
After an extended visit to Nashville with the Predators, forward Chris Mueller spent last weekend back with Milwaukee over the NHL’s All-Star break.
Mueller returned Nashville for this weeks slate of games. However, today to make room for Steve Sullivan to return to the Predators’ roster, Mueller was sent back to Milwaukee. I am not sure on the logistics, but I am assuming Chris is dressed tonight for the Admirals in Grand Rapids.
Tough break for Chris, but anytime Milwaukee can re-add its second leading goal scorer, it can’t hurt too much.
This just in. Every home game for the rest of the season will be Blake Geoffrion bobblehead night.
With the Badger band in town to provide some entertainment off the ice, Blake had a part in all four Admiral goals, as the good guys defeated the Rockford IceHogs 4-2 Friday night.
Here’s coach Lambert on the way Blake has been playing lately.
A goal and three assists for Geoffrion, including the game winner in the 3rd period, further setting an example of why a shot on goal is always a good play.
After bringing the puck from behind the net, around the perimeter, and to the center of the point, Geoffrion just threw it on net, and the puck had eyes to get past goaltender Hannu Toivonen.
Blake admits he was a little nervous tonight.
Blake is going to get all the fanfare from this game, but it was a breakout game offensively for………defenseman Brett Palin! The only player on the current roster who hadn’t scored a goal this season, he scored two tonight — the opening Admiral marker and a goal-line to goal-line empty-netter.
After a scoreless and uninspired first period that found the Admirals going 0-3 with the power play, and after spotting the IceHogs a Wade Brookbank goal, they were able to answer back with Palin’s first of the year. After Linus Klasen made space for himself (like he does), he found Palin lower in the slot than he usually is, and Klasen fed him the puck for the nice goal.
The Ads took their first lead with a goal from Ryan Thang, that was credited to Blake Geoffrion at the time….. It was another shot from near the blue line that had eyes, and it had an OUTSTANDING Thang screen in front of Toivonen. Such a good screen that nobody saw him deflect it.
Coach Lambert likes the development he’s seeing from both of those guys.
Yay, On Wisconsin, yadda yadda, you’ve said it all, yadda yadda…. great end result and a fun night in the building, but there were parts of this game there were not all that pretty. Here’s Lane on the start of the game, and the state of the power play.
Grant Lewis left the game after a collision in the offensive zone. First word is day-to-day with an upper-body injury….that’s great if it’s just day-to-day, but it sure looked like a bigger deal at the time. Feel free to put on your WebMD had and speculate if it’s shoulder or ribs or what.
DISCUSSION POINTS:
Did it feel like the prevent defense in the 3rd period?
If we keep winning, would you mind keeping the green and gold face-off dots for awhile?
Mark Dekanich had a fine game. Didn’t need to stand on his head, and didn’t let in any softies. Good night for the Dexshow, I think.
Patten from Section303.com spent the early part of this week in Hershey for the AHL All-Star festivities. He files this report about Dekanich and Klasen, and this report about the mascot game during the intermission.
Also, our friend Dirk at OnTheForecheck posted an interesting article yesterday, that for a time was the lead story on the NHL’s page at Yahoo! sports. Even his highness, Mr. Puck Daddy himself, linked to it.
He posed an interesting question about supplimental discipline, handed out by the NHL after dirty hits or naughty actions. Do the original six get preferential treatment?
We all remember Marian Hossa sending Dan Hamhuis flying into the boards in the playoffs last season — a play that DEFINITELY merited a suspension, but didn’t supply one.
While I think that the stats are surprising, I’m inclined to think that the real results are simply that Colin Campbell & Co. are madly inconsistent in their league of justice, and sadly, it probably doesn’t bug them at all. It’d be interested to know more specifics of the individual incidents….maybe repeat offenders, maybe in major rivalry games….. but that’s another study, for another day.
Congratulations are in order for Milwaukee Admirals forward Blake Geoffrion, who earned this week’s Reebok/AHL Player of the Week Award. The Brentwood, Tennessee native is fully deserving the honor having piled up six points (three goals and three assists) in this past weekend’s games.
After a slow start adjusting to the speed of the AHL and dealing with some lingering injury issues, Geoffrion’s play has really taken off in recent weeks. The rookie is now up to third on the team in scoring with 25 points, trailing just Jonathon Blum and Linus Klasen.
The award could not have come at a better time for Geoffrion as the Admirals are unveiling a big night in his honor Friday against the Rockford Ice Hogs. Milwaukee is wearing Red/White Badger-like jerseys for the contest, complete with the angled script.
That’s not to mention the Blake Geoffrion bobble head that will be passed out to fans.
I wonder what Blake prefers? A bobble head in his honor, or the little glass trophy from the AHL that he will get to skate off with Friday evening?
So that’ll do it for the All-Star weekend. Linus Klasen was in the starting lineup and recorded an assist and two shots. Mark Dekanich played the 3rd period, gave up the least amount of goals of any of the goalies that played (3 goals), but still got tagged for the loss.
Preds blogger Patten from Section 303 travelled to Hershey for the weekend, and we’ll look to link to some of his coverage soon.
In the meantime….we’ve got a few days until the next game, we’ve got a blizzard warning in effect….what better way to fight cabin fever than with another caption contest? Right? Ok, humor me, at least. Right? Right.
Winner gets cookies from the media room at a future game.
Scott Paulus gives us this great photo. Good luck!
At the All-Star break, Milwaukee sits in the top spot in the AHL’s Western Conference with 60 points in 47 games played. (I do realize that San Antonio and Houston each have 60 points as well, but they’ve played 49 and 51 games respectively).
Yet the Admirals have just two players competing in the AHL All-Star festivities, forward Linus Klasen and goaltender Mark Dekanich. I don’t want to take anything away from those two players earning such honors, but isn’t it strange that Milwaukee didn’t send one single defenseman to Hershey, Pennsylvania?
So what if the Admirals have allowed just 116 goals, best in the West Division and even lower than super stingy and boring Peoria at 122 (Got to love how much that 8-1 win Friday paid off in the AHL stat book).
So what if Jonathon Blum is 11th in the AHL in scoring for defensemen with 28 points? (Snub)
So what if recently red hot Aaron Johnson has seven goals and a 225-game NHL pedigree? (Snub)
So what if Roman Josi is one of the best young defenseman in the AHL, even though he missed seven games with an injury? (Snub)
So what if Teemu Laakso has 16 points, is a plus 11 and spent significant time up with Nashville? (Snub)
Pretty ridiculous in my humble opinion. What does coach Lane Lambert think?
“There are only so many players that can go off a team,” Lambert said. “I do think there were some other guys that were deserving to go as well, but that’s the way it goes.”
Clearly, Lambert decided to take the high road.
My hope is that the Roundtable won’t.
Which Admirals players do think deserve to be lacing up their skates in Hershey this evening?
Admirals Roundtable 