A short vacation/work trip to southern California to take in the Rose Bowl afforded me the chance to spectate the Milwaukee Admirals’ parent club, the Nashville Predators, as they competed in Anaheim one night prior to my return voyage back to frosty Wisconsin.
Here are four of my observations from the Predators 4-1 victory over the Ducks.
1) Chris Mueller fits right in with Nashville.
Though Chris Mueller finished the night with just 8:28 of playing time (the second fewest minutes of any Predators forward) he played a strong two-way game, registering two shots on goal and contributing to several sustained Nashville shifts in the offensive zone. Though Mueller is slightly undersized by NHL standards, the work ethic he showed all year in Milwaukee was evident at the Honda Center. In three games of NHL action through Thursday, Mueller has yet to score, but I have a feeling that will change in the near future.
2) Wade Belak over Linus Klasen? Seriously, Why?
I have seen enough of Wade Belak’s career to really wonder why he has an NHL job in the first place. Against Anaheim, Belak played a whole 1:55, picking up an entertaining scrap with veteran NHL goon George Parros. Belak was in the lineup against the Ducks simply to match up against Anaheim’s size, but everyone else seemed to be doing just fine, including the 5’10” Mueller. Instead of Belak, I wanted to watch Linus Klasen skate alongside Mueller to give Nashville another potential scoring option.
With a back-to-back game in Los Angeles on Thursday, I certainly would have plugged Klasen into the lineup against the more up-tempo Kings. Belak was a complete non-factor, getting less than four minutes of ice time in this game. I have to think that Klasen would have made a more positive impression than Belak, especially as a player hungry to get into the line up. Still, Nashville dominated for a 5-2 come from behind win.
3) Jerred Smithson and Nick Spaling made big impressions.
Jerred Smithson might not be the most exciting player on the Predators, but the former Admiral plays with a ton of heart. Smithson worked his tail off the whole game, and got rewarded with fluky goal that only he knew was in. Playing on the same line as Smithson, Nick Spaling played what I thought was his best game so far with Nashville. He logged over 17 minutes of ice time, assisted on Smithson’s goal and was all over the place on the Predators relentless forecheck.
4) Sheldon Brookbank is stuck as the odd man out in Anaheim.
The remembrance of Brian Burke’s general manager days in Anaheim remains obvious in the team’s defensive corps. Despite losing Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer over the past two years, there are few precious open slots on the Ducks blueline. With all eight rostered defensemen currently healthy, former Admiral Sheldon Brookbank is finding a hard time getting into the line up, much like fellow veteran Paul Mara. From watching him during the pregame skate, Brookbank looked like he was itching to get back to competing rather than spectating.
If you thought that a random Thursday night hockey game wasn’t your time, you missed quite the game. And you would have received free buffalo wings and free frosties, just coming to watch your favorite hockey team. Admirals were victorious over the Grand Rapids Griffins 5-1 on Thursday night.
Here’s the coach.
The first period came and went without much excitement. Both teams seemed to be reeling to get that good set up and the Admirals even had a power play to help. Unfortunately for both teams, neither one was able to light the lamp. Now I said that the first came and went without “MUCH” excitement, I didn’t say no excitement. With 12:32 spent in the first, Adam Keefe was skating the puck through the neutral zone with his head down (tisk, tisk). Scott Ford buried him for his troubles in what was called the “best hit of the year” by some. Keefe got up from the ice, pride hurting and all, and went after Ford. The two came together and the gloves went flying. Both were great with the jabs and hooks but Ford took control of the fight landing (what seems to be his new move) body shots and coming up with a hook to the dome in a nice combo effort. With the fight clearly in hand, Ford was attempting to do something (no one quite knows) but whatever the plan was, it backfired and before Ford knew it Keefe was standing over him with a clinched fist ready to end the fight on a downed Ford. Luckily for Ford the linesmen jumped in and sent them both to the bin for their troubles.
The second period took awhile to get going but boy was it way more exciting than the first. It was the Griffins that got on the board first at the 10:07 mark. The Griffins’ Joakim Andersson was down low in the offensive zone skating towards the blue line. Andersson eyed Greg Amadio at the far side of the blue line and dished the puck to him. Amadio wound up and fired a shot on net that got though the traffic in front and somehow ended up beating net minder Jeremy Smith on the short side. We have had several of the country’s best angle-ologist doing well what angle-ologists do best, and frankly, they were stumped how that beat Smith near side.
Not to be outdone the Admirals were able to answer back with Ryan Flynn scoring his first professional goal 18:18 into the stanza. The puck was dumped into the zone with Mike Bartlett chasing the puck down. He was able to fend off two Griffins players and get the puck up the boards to Mark Van Guilder near side, inside the circle. Van Guilder sent a pass through two Griffins defenders (Filppula and Pare) to a wide open Flynn, who took the puck top shelf to light the lamp. It should be noted that the assists that were given to Bartlett and Van Guilder should be classified as “super assists” with Flynn reaping the rewards of their great play.
Shortly after the goal, the Griffins’ Willie Coetzee committed a tripping penalty to give the Admirals the man advantage for two minutes. The Admirals would only need just 12 seconds to convert, giving them their first lead of the game. Ryan Thang got the puck between the circles and skated to his left towards the net. He put a shot on the net through traffic that was deflected down. With the Griffins defenders following Thang they left the puck for Matt Halischuk to pick up just in front of the crease, and he put a shot on net past a committed Jordan Pearce. The goal was Halischuk’s 9th on the year with helpers going to Thang and Lundmark.
The Admirals would start the 3rd period playing the part of the aggressor, and got two very quick goals. Just 3:30 into the period the Admirals were crashing the net after a shot and rebound. The puck was pinballed around in front by Van Guilder and Aaron Johnson. Flynn skated through the traffic and put a shot on net that got passed Pearce to give the Admirals the 3rd goal of the game. Coach Lambert says it’s great see guys like Flynn who work hard get rewarded.
Before the crowd was even back in their seats the Admirals put another one past Pearce. Although this one couldn’t be fully credited to Pearce, his defense let him down. Logan Pyett skated the puck around his own net trying to avoid the persistent Gabriel Bourque. Well, it didn’t work. Bourque caught up to him when he was between the circles, stole the puck and did the ole spin-n-shoot for the goal. Pearce seemed not even to notice the shot but he sure did hear the horn.
***DISCLAMER***
This next sequence is not a joke nor a gag or any cunning ruse for that matter. What I am about to say ACTUALLY happened. With that said, read at your own discretion.
*** END DISCLAMER***
THURESSON SCORED!!!!! THURESSON SCORED!!!!! Truthfully, I had to watch all the replays because I couldn’t believe my eyes. But, through all the smoke, haze and confetti it was in fact Thuresson that got the goal. It was a nice give and go between Thuresson and Bourque to allow Andreas to get open inside the near circle. Thuresson put a wrister on net that beat Pearce far side. I swear if you looked close enough after the goal you could see the monkey hop off Thuresson’s shoulders, walk through the penalty box, then up to section 212 have a seat and light a cigarette. Talk about a stretch that Thuesson is happy to see end of. The goal gave the Admirals the 5-1 lead and sealed the deal in this matchup.
Coach Lambert hopes that we’ll be seeing more of that from #12.
Jeremy Smith avenged his loss from the last time Grand Rapids played here. You may recall that was a pretty ugly game. The defense came in and helped him out a lot, but it was still a very solid effort. Every game like this makes us forget Chet Pickard’s name a little more. (But damn, the tattoos just won’t go away)
Bourque continues to be the man. Every shift, every minute.
We were just about to have a pool-like-contest to guess when Thuresson was finally going to score. It was going to be epic. Ah, the best laid plans never go through.
Drunk contestants are funny. Poor Ryan. MILWAUUUUUUUUUUUUKEEEEEEEEEEE!
DISCUSSION POINTS:
Do you like how the team kept the pedal to the metal after the 2nd intermission?
Ryan/Matt Flynn. Was he just in the right place at the right time for his two goals, or do you think his play has really improved of late?
10-2-2-1 at home for the Admirals. Pretty good, ya’ll,
How about Wilson’s fight? Not one of his better ones.
Linus Klasen scratched again for the Preds. Maybe that’s what we’ll have a pool about….when does he get sent back to MKE? Trotz would rather run Wade Belak out there for a few minutes than Klasen. What’s up wit dat?
So Ryan will be back driving this truck for Saturday’s game. Thanks for laughing at my jokes, or just at me. Either way, hope you were laughing.
We went straight to the man himself, Matt Moore! He hand picked the winner from all the wonderful responses.
First though, I’d like to give an honorable mention to Big Red. Love the ACME reference. Man, the ACME factory just has all the coolest stuff to do anything but catch a roadrunner!
But the winner……and now two-time defending caption contest champion….is Mark.
“Matt Moore has flashbacks of being bullied in grade school while watching the stretching of the bungee cord. Thus resulting in Moore picking out his ‘pseudo-wedgie’.”
Way to go Mark! You’ve won a second helping of media room cookies!
Also, Matt wanted me to let you know that he still hears everyone saying “That’s debatable!” after penalties end, and he absolutely loves it.
——–
Three home games in four days. Word on Mark Dekanich is that he’s been practicing, but nothing official about whether he’ll be ready to go for tonight or not. Looks like Chet Pickard is still on the roster just in case.
Here are some more links, mostly from the Tennessean.
Blake Geoffrion wrote another post for the newspaper. It’s par for the course.
Need something to do Friday night since there’s no Admirals game? Go catch the Badgers! Friday’s Badger game is Geoffrion night. Here’s an article about it, with a few quotes from Blake.
Eh, I’m not a pro….I can’t hold a candle to Chris Jerina or Scott Paulus. I don’t even deserve to be mentioned in the same paragraph as them. But with Sutty holding down the recap, it allowed me to roam around and try to pretend that I knew how to work my wife’s fancy schmancy camera.
So here you go.
First, the man of the hour. His Yonkness.
Gabriel Bourque attempting to check his Yonkness. Kind of reminds me of this.
Bourque working hard around the crease.
The puck sitting in the middle of the of the scrum. If I knew a rugby joke, I’d make it here.
This is a rare one indeed. Jeff Smith calling a penalty. Looks of disbelief all around. And Matt Halischuk lost a contact lens.
And I’ll leave you with a photo for a caption contest. You know the rules by now.
Featuring our good friends, Matt Moore, John W. Bitter, Nate Harker, Brian Martens, and HHP contestant….
Despite information to the contrary there was in fact an Admirals game played today. As both Ryan and I are allergic to football we figured we would go to the game for you. If you were in fact one of the 2,735 reported to have showed, then you were witness to a pretty good game by the Admirals. The Rampage were playing their 3rd game in as many nights and it showed. Jeremy Smith in net for the Admirals and Chet Pickard on the bench begs the question, where is Mark Dekanich?
He tweaked a lower body injury. Not expected to be serious, but coach says he may or may not be ready to go on Thursday.
The Admirals were able to get on the scoreboard in the first period thanks to some great puck control. While in the offensive zone, Blake Geoffrion gathered the puck and sent a tough pass towards Jon Blum that was skipping and hopping. Blum gloved it down and then sent his own tough pass about thigh high to Gabriel Bourque. (This is where the AWESOME happens) Bourque lifts his leg imitating his best Captain Morgan pose, knocks the puck upwards and then proceeds to catch the puck. He quickly sends the puck down to the ice and puts a shot on net that beat Matt Climie to give the Admirals the 1-0 lead.
That lead would last the remainder of the stanza and in the second the Admirals were able to add to it. With the Rampage’s David Brine in the sin bin for a hooking infraction, the Admirals power play unit went to work. Jamie Lundmark sent the puck to Roman Josi down low. Josi sent the puck to Matt Halischuk, who was at the top of the circle near side. Seeing that there was room to advance he skated to about the faceoff circle and put a scorching wrister on net that beat Climie top side. The shot was a very impressive “snipe” and increased the Admirals lead to 2-0.
The Admirals happy with their two goal lead went into the 3rd period looking a little on their heels. As a result, it didn’t take long for the Rampage to get one past Smith. Matt (one point twenty one gigga-) Watkins carried the puck down the far side boards, put on the breaks and sent what looked to be a centering pass that carried to the front of the net. It bounced off an Admirals player right into the slot to a waiting Andrew Ebbett, who had a 4×6 square to put the puck into. With that goal the Admirals lead was cut in half and awoke them from their slumber.
The Admirals answer right back off what I would call a “fatigue” goal. John Blum gets the puck a couple feet inside the blue line. Uncontested, he skated between the circles and put a shot on net that hit Climie in the chest. The puck not being denied rolled up his pads and over the shoulder into the net. It was one of those goals that 99.9% of the time would be (should be) stopped. Fortunately for Blum this one got through and extended the Admirals lead to 3-1.
That is where things got very interesting. We all know that Coach Lane Lambert and tonight’s referee Jeff Smith are not friends but you would hope to see some professional candor. With a horrible non call where the Rampage’s Ebbett went onto the Admirals bench during a time out to try to find out what the coach was drawing up. Ebbett was able to get close enough to hear but remained far enough away not to be noticed. It wasn’t until Ebbett was on his way back to his own bench that everyone realized what he had done. The place erupted and Lambert was beside himself. When referee Jeff Smith came over you could see him mouth “get over it coach, you’re up 3-1”. Lambert didn’t take to kindly to it. He threw off his sport coat and hopped the boards. He and Smith proceeded to fight. The hay makers were coming and no one could separate them. It wasn’t until the warden showed up and fired a warning shot from his trusty shotgun that the two split up. The real travesty about the whole ordeal is that we were at a break and so no footage of this was captured. So all in all, I guess that it goes to show you that no matter what else is going on in the world, you should never, never, never miss another Admirals game because of some “football” game. ***
The Admirals would go on to win the game 3-1 and grab a much needed two points in a very tight western conference division.
DISCUSSION:
So. Yonkman. As good as you remember? Weird seeing him in black?
No Dex, no problem, eh? How did you like Smitty’s performance tonight?
How about Thang and Halischuk continuing their strong play?
Thuresson? Crickets?
*** Umm, some of those details of that paragraph may be embelished or fabricated. But if you need me to tell you that, then, well….I have some land in Russia I’d like to sell you.
Spending New Years Eve on a bus in Peoria isn’t ideal.
Spending New Years Eve on a bus in Peoria after a 3-1 loss to the Rivermen is less ideal.
The Admirals came out strong, out-shooting the Rivermen 11-2 in the first period, aided by some time on the power play. But the only goal in the frame went to Nathan Oystrick, while Aaron Johnson was thumbing through his roll-a-dex in his office. Took the Rivermen just 17 seconds to convert.
The Rivermen scored two more goals in the first 5:30 if the second period, and Mark Dekanich was given the rest of the year off starting in the 3rd period. Jeremy Smith got some work in, and made saves on all ten shots he faced.
Special teams? Probably the difference in the game. They still need some work. 0-6 on the power play for the Ads, and they gave up two power play goals on six Rivermen chances.
Thuresson? Two shots. No goals.
The only goal went to Ryan Thang, who is doing his best Chris Mueller impersonation, scoring in his second game in a row. Incidentally, Mueller did not play in this evening’s Preds game.
And with that, I’m going to the Riverside Theater to see the Hold Steady welcome in 2011. Best wishes to you for a happy and prosperous 2011!
You can see them here, via The 3rd Intermission blog in Houston.
I was looking forward to reading their take on the game, but sadly, they phoned it in. We’ll link to it anyway, because we’re swell like that.
Enjoy the pictures.
UPDATE: Speaking of going through the motions, let’s hear it for the editors at the Journal Sentinel!
Here’s the thing…our friend Dave Boehler writes the story. But he doesn’t write the headline or photo captions or anything else. Most people don’t know that, but it’s true. Dave has nothing to do with the attempted wit of the headlines.
Ok, everybody makes mistakes….we all do. We all butcher some grammar rules and take some liberties with others….But their job is to make a headline fit for publishing, and anything short of that is unacceptable. This makes Dave look bad, and I can’t get behind that. What a joke.
Also, would it kill them to make sure they spell the names of the players correctly in the photo caption? Who is Peter Zigoni? And really….THAT was the photo they chose to run with? I’d use it for a caption contest, if I didn’t already know what everyone was going to write….
Watch the football game later on your DVR or VCR or whatever you have set up.
Be at the Bradley Center on Sunday, as the San Antionio Rampage come visit, with former Admiral Nolan Yonkman included.
The Phoenix Coyotes just sent Yonkman back to San Antonio after he played his first games in the NHL since the 05-06 season. In 12 games, he recorded one assist, eight shots, 24 PIMs, 34 hits, 9 blocks, and was a +3 defensively.
So here’s your question: How do you plan to greet Yonkman in his first return to his former stomping grounds? Cheers? Boos? Indifference? And how do you think the Admirals faithful will react in general?
One of the toughest aspects of being a minor league hockey player is dealing with all the unknowns of playing on a two-way contract. With only a short notice, players with these deals can be tossed back and forth within an organization.
Over the past two seasons Milwaukee Admirals forward Mark Van Guilder dealt with plenty of unwanted movement, in his case between Milwaukee and the Cincinnati Cyclones. Van Guilder spent his holiday season of 2009-2010 putting a lot of miles on his car.
“Last year I was on a two-way contract between Milwaukee and Cincinnati,” Van Guilder said. “I spent the first half of the season up with the Admirals, but I was sent down to Cincinnati the week before Christmas.”
Van Guilder’s well prepared travel plans got washed away in the transaction.
“Instead of that quick five hour drive home that I was planning on doing, it ended up being that I played with the Cyclones in Trenton and then had ride back through the night to Cincinnati,” Van Guilder said. “After the bus ride I got right into my car and drove the 12 hours home.”
Van Guilder points to Milwaukee forward Dylan Hunter this year as a player who is going through the same sorts of holiday hassles.
“Hunter just got called up to the Admirals and now he’s had to change his travel plans,” Van Guilder said.
Despite the minor league travel issues, Van Guilder feels lucky to be able to get home.
“Playing in Milwaukee, we do get a few days to go home,” Van Guilder said. “It’s kind of mess sometimes, but were fortunate to get home and see our families anyways.”
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