Admirals’ Offense Struggles in Loss to Griffins

Not terribly long ago, the Milwaukee Admirals’ offense was humming right along, potting 21 goals in a four-game stretch.

Including Friday night’s 4-1 loss to the Grand Rapids Griffins at Van Andel Arena to start a home-and-home set, Milwaukee has logged just 11 goals in its last six games.

Starting on Nov. 8, the Admirals tallied a season-best seven goals in a win over the Toronto Marlies. They followed with nine total goals while splitting a weekend series with the Texas Stars before scoring five on Nov. 17 in an overtime win against the Rockford IceHogs.

Since then, Milwaukee (9-7-1-0) has been held to two goals or less four times and looking for answers.

“We trying to figure out different way to score by committee,” Admirals assistant coach Scott Ford said in a postgame radio interview. “We gave ourselves an abundance of quality chances (against Grand Rapids). For whatever reason, it’s not going in.”

But the lack of explosive scoring in recent weeks hasn’t hurt the Admirals in the standings. Milwaukee is in third place in the Central Division, one point behind Rockford and four points in back of first place Texas.

With goals at a premium in recent matchups, the last thing the Admirals wanted was to play from behind. But that’s where they found themselves after Griffins defenseman Jared MacIsaac beat Yaroslav Askarov with 2:01 to play in the opening period.

Say this for the Admirals — it’s not as if they’re not trying to score.

In the opening period, Milwaukee fired 15 shots on goal at the Griffins’ Sebastian Cossa. The total number of shots in the opening 20 minutes was one fewer than what the Admirals recorded in a 2-1 home loss to Grand Rapids on Nov. 4.

The Griffins extended their lead to 2-0 at 4:05 of the second when Simon Edvinsson, also a defenseman, picked up his fourth goal.

The Admirals finally got one past Cossa at 14:17 when Fedor Svechkov scored on the power play for his third goal in four games and sixth of the season. Svechkov is tied with Egor Afanasyev for the team lead in goals.

But Milwaukee failed to build off Svechkov’s goal. Edvinsson scored his second of the game with just under 12 minutes to go to make it 3-1. With Askarov off for an extra attacker, the Griffins’ Joel L’Esperance added a power play goal into an empty net with 64 seconds left.

“They took advantage of the chances that we gave them,” Ford said.

Askarov stopped 25 shots in the loss, and the Admirals will not have long to dwell on this one. Milwaukee and Grand Rapids square off again Saturday night in Wisconsin.

“We came out on the wrong end of this one,” Ford said. “Hopefully (Saturday), on short rest, we can flip the table.”

THREE STARS

1. Sebastian Cossa, Grand Rapids: Stopped 35 of 36 shots faced.
2. Simon Edvinsson, Grand Rapids: Defenseman scored twice.
3. Fedor Svechkov, Milwaukee: Moves into a tie for the team lead with his sixth goal.

COMING UP

After the Admirals wrap up their home-and-home series with the Griffins on Saturday at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, Karl Taylor’s squad will face off against the San Diego Gulls on Wednesday night before meeting the Iowa Wild in a two-game weekend set in Des Moines that gets under way Friday night.