This doesn’t look like the same team that started the season so well, even though much of the personnel is the same.

The Admirals have hit the All-Star Break losers of four in a row, and six of their last seven, as they lost to the Rockford IceHogs 3-1 on Saturday night.

Goals are still a premium for the Admirals, as they scored just one goal in three of their four losses.

We’re tired of asking about it, and I’m sure Coach Herbers is tired of talking about it.

The Admirals found themselves trailing 4:15 into the first period after a Joe Lavin shot from the far point was deflected by Rostislav Olesz just inside of the far circle.  The shot went down, and went between Jeremy Smith’s legs.

The Ads tied it up about eight a half minutes later with Taylor Beck’s 8th of the year.  Scott Valentine had a nice keep-in at the point, and sent the puck towards the net.  Joel Champagne had the initial shot, but Beck was able to deflect it in.

In the second period, Lavin got a goal for himself.  A shot from the near point that beat Smith far side.  A Chet Pickard style goal that makes you scratch your head.

Brain Fahey made it a two-goal lead with a power play marker.  Ben Smith was behind the goal-line, and sent a pass to Fahey pinching to the far faceoff dot.  Blake Geoffrion was the forward on that side, and couldn’t decide whether to go after Smith or watch Fahey.

Carter Hutton continued his strong play for the IceHogs, netting his 10th win of the season.  Coach Herbers credits not only the hot goalie, but the hot team playing in front of him too.

Confidence.  Attitude.  Energy.  Gel-ing.  If you were playing the $25,000 Pyramid, those would be “Things Not Associated With The Admirals Right Now.”

– Jon Blum.  A big disappointment.  Although, to his credit, he did make some nice plays in crunch time late in the third period.  But he doesn’t look like he’s particularly invested in this team right now.  Easy for me to say in press row, but I think he played better when he was here last year.  (This just in….10:08 pm, Jon Blum tweets “Well, All-Star Break is here.  Heading back to sunny southern California for a few days to celebrate my birthday with family.  Can’t wait.”

Draw your own conclusions.  Make up your own punchlines.

– Blake Geoffrion.  Not much better.  Not making a positive impact like he should be.  He stood out tonight.

– I’d really like to point to someone who stood out in a good way by having a pretty good game, and I’m having a tough time doing it.  Yes, the effort in the third period was much much better…but this team needs to find a way to bottle that and play like that for longer stretches of time.

So as the zamboni circles the BMO Harris Bank Center ice to clean up the pink highlights….we’ll wrap this up.  We’ll leave with one question for the Roundtable:  How do you fix the Admirals right now?

It was largest crowd since April 14th, 2006.

It was the 2nd largest crowd since they joined the AHL.

It was the 7th largest crowd in franchise history.

It was their 17th regulation loss of the year.

The Admirals gave up a pair of first period goals, and couldn’t claw back into the game to get the equalizer, as the Wolves dropped the Admirals 2-1 Friday night in front of 17,386 customers.

Don’t want to read anymore?  Here’s a summary of the game from Coach Herbers.

Coach talked about lost battles and not sealing guys off, but the thing that jumped out at me on the two Chicago goals was that Jeremy Smith was doing a lot of sliding around.   And when the puck bounced a couple of odd ways, there wasn’t any way he was going to be back in position.  That first goal that Reinprecht scored will be one of the easiest of his career.

It really was a different game after the first period.  The Wolves only had nine shots on net the rest of the way, and the Ads put 23 on Wolves goalie Matt Climie.  The different in those two periods?  Matt Climie.  Climie moves to 5-1 on the season against the Admirals.

Here’s the one shot that DID get past Climie.

– LINES….at least how they started….

Geoffrion – Mueller – Beck
Champagne – Wilson – Thang
Dupont – Lajunen – Flynn
Koger – Van Guilder – Stortini

Meet 6’2 winger Daniel Koger!  Called up today with Juuso Puustinen on the shelf as a scratch.  Koger has five goals and ten assists in 19 games with the Cyclones in the ECHL.  It’s his third PTO of the year, after playing three games with St. Johns, and five games with Providence.  Here’s coach on Koger’s debut, and some expected vagueness about Puustinen.

I didn’t care for Geoffrion in his first game back from the injury, but Coach liked his game.  He thought he was good on both ends, and had a good week of practice this week.

So this is a slump, eh?  I’m sure the coach is tired of us asking about it, but I think he’s sincere in his optimism that we’ll be okay soon.

Ryan Thang says something along the same lines.

Fun facts:  The Predators were 15-14-4 with Jon Blum in their lineup.  They are 15-2 without him.

Okay.  Tomorrow in Rockford, and then it’s the All-Star break.  The schedule-makers did us a favor by having Rockford play in Charlotte tonight.  So with a gameday travel day tomorrow for the IceHogs, maybe the Ads can have a leg up.  And the Flames did us a favor by trading for All-Star defenseman Brian Connelly.  So that may help.  But don’t look now…the IceHogs are just three points behind the Admirals in the standings (having played four more games, though).

See you in Rockford tomorrow.  But feel free to leave your thoughts of the game in the comments section.

There are not many A.M. starts on the AHL calender. After the performance the Admirals endured after their early wake up call Tuesday morning, Milwaukee should be hoping to avoid another.

Well rested Peoria, playing in front of 7,082 at Carver Arena, gave the Admirals a beat down reminiscent of elementary school bully. Riding a stretch of four straight goals after Milwaukee took a 1-0 lead, the Rivermen cruised to a 6-3 victory.

The flaming hot Chris Mueller picked up his 19th of the season just over seven minutes in to draw the Admirals first blood, but that’s when the vaunted Peoria power play went to work. Extra man tallies by Danny Syvret and Phil McRae gave the Rivermen their first lead, then captain Adam Cracknell and AHL dynamo T. J. Hensick (the AHL’s third leading scorer with 50 points) made it 4-1 just under five minutes into the third period.

Defenseman Victor Bartley and forward Ryan Thang gave Milwaukee some life in the third period with respective goals, but Cracknell’s second and Jonathan Cheechoo’s empty netter sunk the Admirals ship.

At points the game resembled a shooting gallery on Milwaukee goaltender Jeremy Smith, who stopped 34 of 39 shots. Jake Allen made 27 stops for Peoria to earn the win.

Lots of disappointments for Milwaukee. Jonathon Blum certainly played like he could have used more sleep as he finished with just one assist and played as a -3. Similar morning for Teemu Laakso (-2). Neither looked ready to return to Nashville anytime soon.

The lone Milwaukee highlight:  A fight by Admirals defenseman Jeff Foss seemed to spark a resurgence in the third period. Still Milwaukee managed just eight shots in the final frame.

With the win Peoria moves within one point of Milwaukee and Chicago at 21-19-2-1. This is Peoria’s third straight win over Milwaukee after the Admirals won the first five games of the season series all in regulation.

Milwaukee slips to 22-16-1-1 (just 8-10-0-1 playing away from the Bradley Center), winning just one game on its four-game road trip.

At least Milwaukee gets to return home for a game against Chicago on Friday night.

So Roundtable . . . Some questions for discussion:

1) What did you think of the morning start and did you get to watch/listen to the game?

2) Do you think the early start effected Milwaukee’s play?

3) Can the Admirals overcome a struggling a penalty kill and poor road record and still make the playoffs, or do these problems need to be fixed pronto?

With news coming out today that Michael Latta suffered a broken bone (in arm or wrist) while blocking a shot in Cleveland on Thursday night, center Aaron Marvin was signed to a PTO contract in time for today’s game against Rockford.

Good pick.  Because if he hadn’t been called up, the Admirals may have been shutout.

Marvin scored the first goal of the game, but then Brandon Pirri scored a pair of power play goals, and that was all the IceHogs needed to defeat the Admirals 2-1.

Add Latta’s name to the list of the walking wounded.  Also out:  Blake Geoffrion, Taylor Beck, and Tyler Sloan.

Milwaukee hadn’t played since Thursday, and the IceHogs were finishing their third game in three days.  Actually was a pretty good week for the IceHogs — four games, four wins….including a pair against the Wolves.

These were two points the Admirals needed to get.

Both of Pirri’s goals were from about the same spot….the right face-off dot.  Perhaps a credit to the special teams gameplan for the IceHogs, getting Jeremy Smith moving from right to left in the crease.

Pirri has officially reached “nemesis” status.  In his three games against the Admirals this season, he has 4 goals and 2 assists.

Marvin deflected a shot from Jon Blum for his first of the season.  The new guy had been playing for the Chicago Express of the ECHL, where his counting stats were 8 goals and 13 assists in 32 games.  If his name sounds familiar…he participated in Milwaukee’s training camp at the start of the season.

The Admirals were unable to score on their 3 power play chances tonight, ending their streak of games with at least one power play goal at 8 games.  Meanwhile, the PK — still an issue.  Rockford scored on 2 of their 5 chances.

The Admirals sent a parade to the penalty box in the second period, giving the IceHogs four power play chances in that period alone.

The Ads will conclude their 4-game road trip Tuesday morning (!) when they visit the Peoria Rivermen.  10am opening face-off.

After giving up a pair of one-goal leads in the third period, Chris Mueller was awarded a penalty shot in the overtime period.  And he beat Lake Erie goaltender Trevor Cann to give the Admirals a 3-2 victory.

The win snapped Milwaukee’s 6-game road losing streak — their longest such streak since 1997.

The snakebitten Ryan Thang really deserves an assist on the penalty shot, as his pass to Mueller sprung him on the breakaway that Mueller converted on.  But brownie points aren’t an official AHL stat…and Thang remains pointless in 2012.

The Admirals did manage to keep another streak going though, and a good streak at that.  They’ve now scored a power play goal in 8 straight games.  They scored a pair tonight!  Kyle Wilson in the first period, who was strong with his stick in front of the goal while being worked over by a defender.  And Zack Stortini had a power play goal too, deflecting a Scott Valentine shot from the point after a Wilson face-off win.

Wilson at center.  Good returns so far.

Wilson had the only goal of the first period, and it stayed that way until early in the third period, when the Monsters scored the second a power play ended.  Stortini answered a few minutes later, but Cameron Gaunce tied the game with 5:27 left in the third period with a shot from the point through traffic.

Jeremy Smith was in the crease for his second game in two nights, and got the win for the Admirals turning aside 23 of 25 shots.

Taylor Beck and Tyler Sloan were both injured last night in Hamilton, and neither played tonight.  No call-ups were needed, as Jeff Foss and Chris Cahill were both on the trip.  No word yet on how serious the injuries are.

The Ads are off until Sunday, when they’ll play in Rockford to try to start a new road WINNING streak.