Category: News

News

Linus Klasen Looking to Reignite His Offense Against Lake Erie

Despite scoring eight goals in his first 11 games with Milwaukee, Admirals forward Linus Klasen is hardly content with his performance so far.

“Of course I am happy with my production so far, but I am never satisfied,” Klasen said.  “I am going to keep working every day to try to keep producing even more.   If you get satisfied, that’s when it can turn around on you really fast.”

The gifted Swede, who is scoreless in his last two games, hopes to reignite his offense this weekend against Lake Erie, a team that is missing its top goaltender.  Longtime NHL veteran John Grahame is currently up with the Colorado Avalanche with starter Craig Anderson injured for an indefinite period of time.

Speaking of the Monsters, this weekend Milwaukee will see a team that has a lot of similarities to themselves.  Lake Erie is a young and dynamic squad that is growing in confidence with every game.

“Grand Rapids and Lake Erie are both very good teams and fast teams, so we will be challenged (this week),” Milwaukee coach Lane Lambert said.

Several names on the Monsters should be familiar to Wisconsin hockey fans.  Lake Erie’s fifth leading scorer is former Badgers forward Matthew Ford.  At least three other Monsters played for the University of Minnesota, including R. J. Anderson, Ryan Stoa and Mike Carman.

News

Admirals Set to Become Road Warriors

And so it begins, the 10-game marathon road trip for the Milwaukee Admirals.

Today the team got on the bus and left for a franchise-tying travel adventure, visiting six different AHL cities along the way–Grand Rapids, Cleveland, San Antonio, Austin, Oklahoma City, Austin (again), Houston and San Antonio (part deux).

(Here is a google map of the trip just in case you wanted to follow Milwaukee on its cross country trek)

For coach Lane Lambert, the roadie presents an opportunity to find out a lot about his young squad.

“Though we’ve played six games already on the road, there will be some things that we will learn on this 10-game trip,” Lambert said. “We should get a good assessment (of our club).”

By the time Milwaukee leaves San Antonio on Sunday, November 28, the Admirals will have played 22 games so far this season or over a fourth of its 80-game total.  Lambert expects Milwaukee to have its main team concepts polished up by the end of the trek.

“This is the time when we really need to solidify the systems in our game,” Lambert said.

Milwaukee currently stands in fourth place in the West Division with 15 points.  Sitting in that position or better on December 1st will go a long way for the Admirals in 2010-2011, as in each month going forward Milwaukee plays more home games than road games.

Bonus:  Some Fun Stats for the Trip and Beyond

1) If the Admirals cover the entire trip by bus they will have logged nearly 5,000 miles, or spent nearly three and half days just traveling.

2) Using an estimate of gas at $3 a gallon and traveling in a bus that gets 10 miles per gallon, Milwaukee will have spent $1,441.80 on fuel for the trip.

3) Using the best routes by bus, the Admirals will spend time traveling in eight different states:  Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas (the team will miss a ninth, Kansas, by just a few miles).

4) Strangely, Milwaukee travels on no road trips longer than three consecutive games after November’s 10-game southern quest.  In fact, this trip is only one all season longer than three games.

5) If you think Lambert is joking about assessing his club, check out my season preview.

News

Geoffrion Update

Blake Geoffrion left Sunday’s game in the 2nd period after taking a blindside hit to the head from Wolves forward Spencer Machacek.

I’ve been told that they’re still not sure the extent of the injury, but he’s not making the trip to Grand Rapids for the Brunch-Game on Wednesday.  Mike Bartlett has been recalled from Cincy and will make the trip.

Also — some video tape from the game has been sent to the league office, but I’m not sure if it’s regarding the Blake hit or the Lundmark mugging in the 3rd period.  It may be both.  We’ll see if the league offers any supplemental discipline.

News

An Apology

There was some great discussion in the thread about the Admirals/Wolves game on Sunday…but there was also some parts that got a little out of hand.

I’m referring to the comments regarding the National Anthem performance.

We’re all part of the Admirals family here, and when we should have been supportive, we weren’t.

And as the editor of this blog, I let things get out of hand…which is unacceptable.  I have removed/edited the comments in the previous thread that discussed this.

So on behalf of myself, and the readers, I’d like to offer an apology to “Chels” and her family.  I dropped the ball on this one.

Chels, I hope that you’ll come back and perform again, and I know that if you do, you’ll bring the house down.  Or you’ll raise the roof….whichever cliche you’d rather do.

I’m closing the comments on this post.

Thanks for reading.  We’ll have some more content later today.

News

How Milwaukee Can Beat Chicago

When the puck drops Sunday afternoon at the Bradley Center, Milwaukee will try to do something that they haven’t all season—beat Chicago.

In the three prior meetings with the Wolves, the Admirals have found three different ways to drop games.  It started with a 3-2 loss in overtime at home on October 15, then a 3-2 shootout defeat the next night in Chicago, and finally falling 4-3 in a regulation decision on October 24 at Allstate Arena.

For Milwaukee coach Lane Lambert, the first step toward knocking off Chicago starts with better netminding.

“We have to get good goaltending,” Lambert said. “I feel like we should have won two out of the three games against the Wolves, but we didn’t get saves when we needed them.”

Lambert also believes that a consistent effort against Chicago will go a long way toward getting that first win against last year’s West Division champs.

“We have to string a full 60 minutes together against them,” Lambert said.  “In the past we’ve had lulls and it hurt us on the scoreboard.”

Newly acquired Steve Begin, who played his first game with the Admirals against Chicago agrees with Lambert, but also believes Milwaukee needs to pay more attention to the little things.

“We made a lot of mistakes in that game,” Begin said.  “But we can beat them if we skate for 60 minutes, have good communication on the ice and take care of the details.”

News

November’s Only Home Stand Looms Large for Milwaukee

Brace yourself Admirals fans:  Milwaukee’s schedule is about to take another nasty turn.

In the month of November the Admirals have just three measly home games and none past this Sunday’s game meeting with Chicago.  Therefore this week’s matchups—games against Rockford on Wednesday, Peoria on Friday, and the team’s fourth meeting of season with the Wolves on Sunday—represent a vital stretch for Milwaukee to gain significant points in the AHL standings.

“We would really like to get the month off on the right foot considering we’re going on the road for the next ten games,” Admirals coach Lane Lambert said.  “That’s the general objective for these next three games—for us to have a strong start.”

The other key to this week’s contests is that they are West Division games played against Milwaukee three closest geographic rivals.  Currently, the Admirals sit in sixth place in the West, chasing both Chicago and Peoria.  Milwaukee could move up the ladder by claiming four or more points on the week.

Obviously, the first days of November is far too early in the season to start worrying about Milwaukee’s playoff positioning.  But a couple of big home wins this week would make life a lot less stressful on Lambert’s crew as the Admirals head south for the latter half of the month.

So, Roundtable:  How many points do you think Milwaukee will get out of these next three games?  Would anything less than four be considered a disappointment?  Why?

News

VOTE! For Reals!

Remember to get out there and vote today.

If you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain.

And everyone loves complaining.  So everyone should, in theory, love voting.

Make time today to vote.

This public service message was brought to you by…..the memory of Pat Paulsen.

News

Klasen Returned

Swamped at work….sorry for the delay.  I know….don’t let it ever happen again, right?

Linus Klasen is Milwaukee bound again, after making his NHL debut over the weekend.

We’ll see if we can get some quotes from him after the game on Wednesday, and find out some of the finer points of his long weekend in Nashville.

News

Caption Contest Winner!

Time to announce the winner of the season’s first caption contest.

First, a couple of honorable mentions.  And they seemed to have to do with the least prominent character in the photo….

Mark said: “Everyone in the crowd and on the ice reacts to hearing the news that Drew MacIntyre makes half a million bucks as a glorified doorman.”  Nice callback to a recent Roundtable post!

I liked Admiralfreak’s “MacIntyre: “I hope that lady texting is starting up a #PasqualeIsSoPoor meme on twitter.”   Poor Mac.  Can’t get a break.  But giving up 10 goals in two games doesn’t help either.

But the winner….tough to argue with a caption that includes every single character in the picture, and finds a tasteful way to tie it all together!

From Isis:  “Shocking results from this weeks “Dancing with the Stars”. After a perfect waltz the night before, Matt Halischuk and Jaime Sifers stumbled horribly during their cha-cha in a hockey themed race for the puck. Judges Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli were visibly shocked by the performance. Audience members were pleased with Halischuk’s choice of pink, but were visibly put off by their dancing efforts and were too busy texting. Drew MacIntyre could not be reached for comment.”

Way to go Isis!  Although I plead complete ignorance to the television show you referenced, this one actually made me laugh out loud.  And your prize?  In addition to the bragging rights in the Admirals Crew break room, you’re the first winner of the delicious media room cookies.  Send an email to admiralsroundtable (at) g mail, and let me know the next home game you’ll be attending, and we’ll set up the delivery of your prize.  But don’t expect any dancing with the delivery.  It’s in everyone’s best interests that way.

Thanks to everyone who submitted an entry….we’ll have another contest in the near future.

News

Milwaukee Journeys to Abbotsford to Face a Familiar Foe

There is one team in the AHL not like the others—the Abbotsford Heat.

Located just over an hour’s drive east of Vancouver, British Colombia, Abbotsford is most geographically isolated city in the AHL.  The nearest league city to the Heat is Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is located three Canadian provinces further east, or over a day’s drive by bus.  (Check out the Map of all the AHL team locations here)

Therefore when teams travel to Abbotsford, it is often for a two-game stint in order to reduce travel expenses.  This weekend Milwaukee has unenviable task of making the western trek.

But what makes this year’s trip even more peculiar is that it represents the final meetings between Milwaukee and Abbotsford this season.

“There’s parts of our schedule I don’t like, and parts I like, and it’s going to be that way every year,” Admirals coach Lane Lambert said.  “It’s bizarre that we play the same team four times in the first month of the season and then we don’t see them again.”

So far the Admirals have burned the Heat, winning both of their home games by a combined 9-3 count. Milwaukee has counted for half of Abbotsford’s losses so far this season.

“Obviously we’ll be very familiar with each other by the time the final buzzer goes next Saturday,” Lambert said.

Speaking of familiar, one player on the Heat Admirals fans should recognize is former Wisconsin Badgers defenseman Joe Piskula.

After playing five games in the NHL with the Los Angeles Kings in 2006-2007, Piskula’s career stagnated with the Manchester Monarchs.  The Antigo, Wisconsin native is hoping a change of scenery to the Canadian Northwest may reinvigorate his once promising career.

So what do think Roundtable?  Should the AHL balance the schedule out more?  Or does the league’s special case of Abbotsford make the scheduling quirk ok?