The Milwaukee Admirals came off of an almost week long break on Sunday afternoon to beat the Manitoba Moose 6-5. The win also snapped a 6 game losing streak, dating back to February 1st when Milwaukee lost 3-2 to Manitoba. The last Admirals victory also came to Manitoba when the Admirals won 8-2 on January 26th.
The Admirals opened up an offensive onslaught early in the first period when Duncan Siemens scored his second goal of the season at 4:36 when he shot the puck through the five-hole of Manitoba netminder Eric Comrie.
Late in the first period Admirals leftwinger Adam Helewka scored his first goal of the evening at 16:07 off of a beautiful pass from Colin Blackwell. This was Helewka’s 15th of the season, but that includes the time he spent with the Tucson Roadrunners before being traded to Milwaukee a few weeks ago. Milwaukee led shots on goal 10-7 in the first.
The second period started with Manitoba tying the game in the first three minutes. Skyler McKenzie and Jansen Harkins both scored goals to tie the game 2-2. While the Harkins goal was being announced Milwaukee’s Joe Pendenza scored his second goal of the season to give Milwaukee the lead again.
At 7:19 Adam Helewka got another pass from Colin Blackwell (3) to score his second goal of the game. Eeli Tolvanen would score his ninth of the season exactly four minutes after the Helewka goal from the top of the circle while skating backwards. Manitoba decided that five goals was enough for Comrie and put in Mikhail Berdin who stopped all 15 shots he faced for the remaineder of the contest. Milwaukee only led shots on goal 15-14 in the second.
The third period felt very similar. Manitoba’s JC Lipon scored at 7:06 and then at 13:15 Alexis D’Aoust scored to put the Moose within 1 goal. The Moose pulled their goalie with about three minutes left in the third in favor of an extra attacker. At 18:42, Matt Donovan backhanded the puck from the Admirals goal line into the Manitoba goal for his 11th goal of the season.
It seemed that Manitoba still had some energy left because 10 seconds after the empty net goal Lipon scored his second goal of the game. Milwaukee managed to prevent Manitoba from scoring a game tying goal in the last minute of the game to secure a 6-5 victory.
Game Notes:
This was a confusing win, because the Admirals did a lot of things right. They were finding the back of the net pretty consistently and scored 6 goals on 35 total shots. However, Manitoba was able to score on Milwaukee netminder Troy Grosenick 5 times on 32 shots. Neither side had solid goaltending. Luckily the Admirals came out ahead in offensive production.
It’s good that the Admirals are starting this 7 game road trip with a win. With that being said, this sort of production by the Admirals has been inconsistent. The last time the Admirals won a game was an 8-2 win over Mantioba on January 26th. The win before that was on January 22nd when they scored 7 goals. It seems that in order for the Admirals to win a game since the new year, they need to scored 4 or more goals. They aren’t winning low scoring games. The Admirals have won 7 out of 19 games in 2019.
The Admirals have dropped into 5th place in the Central division. They are tied with Rockford with 56 points and are now 11 points out of first place, currently held by Grand Rapids. As we begin to look forward to the playoffs, Milwaukee would need to have an incredibly solid performance in the remaining 23 games. The way it looks right now, the Admirals are likely to have their second consecutive season without a playoff appearance.
Milwaukee will face Manitoba again Monday afternoon at 2:00pm Central time.
