During the life of a hockey season, there tend to be a few turning points, positive and negative that have an effect on the course of a whole campaign.  During the Admirals 10-game November road swing, a couple of major momentum shifts occurred.

Milwaukee started off the trip hot, then went ice cold in the middle, but finished the trip strong.   In the process, the Admirals became a better team now than they were prior to leaving Milwaukee for an extended period of time.

So what do the players and coaches think were the lessons from the trip?

Coach Lane Lambert:

“I think the biggest quality we took from the trip was our ability to learn from adversity, and for us to overcome and come together as a group.  During the middle the trip we went through a bit of a tough patch, but I thought our leadership really showed through.  It was a learning experience for us to go through that adversity, but adversity can make you stronger if you go about it in the right way.  I think we did a good job of (dealing) with it.”

(Now Nashville) goaltender Mark Dekanich:

“Anytime your on the road for such a long period of time like that it brings guys together.  I think it’s a good experience especially for the younger guys, who are playing in their first year as a professional, to get to see how the veterans handle themselves on the road and to see what we need to do to be successful.  There was a lot of ups and downs during the trip, but I think we did a fairly good job of managing that.  We were 5-3-2 on that than 10 game swing, which is not too bad.”

Defenseman Scott Ford:

“I think anytime you go on the road for such a long period of time, it gives your team a chance to jell together and kind of learn a little bit about each other.  You spend a lot of time together, eat meals together and get to know each other more on a personal level, so that can help you jell as a team.  I think we saw that with this trip.”