Admirals Break Through in Overtime

Saturday night was weird.

The sidewalks outside the BMO Harris Bank Center were filled to the brim with green-clad, inebriated, Shamrock Shufflers braving the 30-degree temperatures in nothing but their emerald T-shirts for warmth. Strangely, that’s not far-off from a normal Milwaukee night. It was the hockey game between the Milwaukee Admirals and their division rival Chicago Wolves that was atypical.

The game featured an ovation for two linesmen, an extended stoppage of play to fix a problem with the glass, a delayed start to the second period for ice issues, a broken stick thrown 10 rows into the stands and a fan struck in the head by a wild puck. Perhaps the strangest part of all, there was a scoreless tie at the end of regulation.

It took the Ads nearly five minutes to get their first shot of the game. They came out of the gates slowly and had trouble connecting on passes, battling several bouncing pucks.

“Our start, we didn’t like at all,” Admirals Head coach Dean Evason said.

Fortunately for the Admirals, Chicago was just as challenged offensively. The teams combined for 19 shots in the first period, but even that is a little misleading. Aside from a shot by Wolves’ defensemen Andre Benoit that rattled off the post a little more than six minutes in, there were few scoring chances to go around. The most noteworthy part of the first period was probably a section of glass coming loose from the stanchion halfway through the period — causing a 10-minute delay as players waited for arena staff to fix the problem.

After yet another delay, this time for an uneven patch in the ice, the second period began, yielding even fewer shots than the first. However, the energy level picked up for both teams in the sandwich stanza. At the 2:26 mark, Admirals’ center Cody Bass squared off with Chicago’s Emerson Clark right after the faceoff in what was one of the better fights you’ll see at any level. Both men landed multiple blows and when it ended, an impassioned Bass spiked his helmet into the ice in an attempt to rev-up both his team and the crowd.

“We just didn’t have legs,” Evason said. “We really had to push and Cody Bass’ confrontation there, I think, kind of fired us up. That’s what he does.”

Less than three minutes later, Admirals winger Pontus Aberg snapped his stick on a one-timer attempt, missing out on a prime scoring opportunity. Aberg launched the shaft into the stands, where it was snagged by a fan in a Wolves jersey. The stunt landed Aberg in the penalty box with a 10-minute misconduct.

“It was a really good chance for me and my stick broke and I just got mad for a second and lost it,” Aberg said. “I didn’t mean to send it over the glass. I don’t know, I put more power into it than I thought. I was just going to throw it into the boards.”

The Admirals woke up in the third period, peppering Wolves’ goalie Pheonix Copley with 21 shots, five more than they mustered in the first two periods combined. Milwaukee had several scoring chances, but the best opportunity came from winger Max Reinhart, the man who notched a hat trick against the Wolves just last week. Reinhart, reminiscent of his second goal last week, blew behind the Wolves’ defense for a breakaway. Reinhart tried to snap one underneath Copley’s pads, but the netminder was up to the task, sending it away, as he did with every shot he saw in regulation. Despite outshooting the Wolves’ 37-22, Milwaukee found itself tied in the only category that matters: goals.

The overtime period finally saw the Admirals break through and claim the win. Admirals’ defenseman Trevor Murphy threw a centering pass from just above the goal line, finding Aberg who was crashing the net. A quick deflection sent the puck sliding between Copley’s legs and into the back of the net for Aberg’s 16th goal of the season.

“Their goalie played good tonight,” Aberg said. “We had a lot of chances, especially our line I think. In the second and third we had breakaways and open nets and it was good to see one finally go in.”

Copley played so phenomenally that Admirals’ goaltender Juuse Saros was overshadowed even in a shutout effort. It was a relatively quiet game for Saros, who only had to make 22 saves en route to the shutout. As a matter of fact, Saros was named the second star of the game, putting him in a rare group of goaltenders who have ever won an overtime game with a shutout and not won first star honors. The fact that Copley, the losing goalie, received the nod for first-star, only adds to the weirdness that was Saturday night.

When asked if he had ever finished with a shutout and received anything less than first star:

“Probably if someone scored three goals or something,” Saros said.