The Milwaukee Admirals exploded offensively on Wednesday morning during the school day game against the Manitoba Moose. Thanks to two goals from Daniel Carr and contributions from four other Admirals, the team won 6-4.
Manitoba actually opened up scoring in this game. At 7:21 Kristian Vesalainen scored his first goal of the season against Wisconsin native Troy Grosenick while the Moose were on the powerplay.
The Manitoba lead lasted a little over seven minutes. Manitoba netminder Mikhail Berdin left the net to handle the puck, but he mishandled it and Mathieu Olivier (4) eventually took possession of the puck behind the net. He passed to a crashing Tommy Novak who fired the shot passed Berdin. This was Tommy Novak’s first professional goal.
Manitoba re-established the lead at 18:24 with a goal from Cole Maier. This was Maier’s first goal of the season.
With 29 seconds left in the first period Tommy Novak (2) took a pass in the middle of the circle and was able to center it for Cole Schneider to tap it through Berdin to tie the game. This was Cole Schneider’s fourth goal of the season.
The Moose would have the lead one more time in this game. At 7:44 in the second C.J. Suess scored to give the Moose a 3-2 lead.
At 9:05, Yakov Trenin powered through a defender and backhanded a shot passed Berdin for his fifth goal of the season. Rem Pitlick (5) had the lone assist on the goal. This is also the first goal for Trenin since returning from his one game stint in Nashville.
Daniel Carr opened the flood gates towards the end of the second period, scoring two goals. He scored his third goal of the season with a wrist shot from the point. Novak (3) and Carrier (6) had the assists. His second goal of the game came at 19:14 with an assist from Tommy Novak (4) as he sniped another wrister from the slot. Admirals led 5-3 at the end of the second period.
Only 2:40 into the final period, Colin Blackwell would score his third of the season when he was able to finish a one-timer from Matt Donovan (3). Yakov Trenin (3) had the secondary assist.
The Moose scored one final goal to make it 6-4 at 17:40. Sami Niku beat Grosenick for his third of the season.
Game Notes
This was another showcasing of Milwaukee’s powerhouse offense. Daniel Carr had three points and Tommy Novak had one of the best games of his career with four points.
Despite giving up four goals, Troy Grosenick was outstanding. The four goals can mostly be attributed to several defensive breakdowns in front of the net. Grosenick stopped 22/26 shots. Grosenick is third in the AHL with a 1.76GAA. Wednesday’s game is the first time he has given up more than two goals this season in seven games played.
The Admirals powerplay was lacking, to say the least. They were 0 for 6 on the powerplay in this contest. After 12 games, the Admirals are sitting at 17.6% on the powerplay.
*Sigh* Let’s talk about Eeli Tolvanen. Tolvanen was good for 4 shots in Wednesday’s matchup. He has, thus far, led the team in most games in terms of shots on goal and does lead the team for the season with 38 shots. He has appeared in all 12 of Milwaukee’s games and currently has 1 goal and 2 assists. He’s shooting at 2.6%. The AHL does not publicly share on ice data, so we are unable to use shot maps or Time On Ice to figure out what is going on. Purely from the eye test, his shots are coming from low danger spots on the ice. At some point, the Admirals or the Predators will need to address his lack of production. For the time being, he is definitely not going to be the go to call up for the Predators.
