Hockey: Admirals get shut out by Griffins.

Coach: It’s just a scoring drought

Lately, the Milwaukee Admirals’ roster has been changing faster than one can say “that’s minorleague hockey.”

In the past 11 days, there have been 17 transactions involving the American Hockey League team — those coming and going from the NHL's Nashville Predators, Milwaukee signing players to professional tryout contracts or the Admirals releasing them.

But Admirals coach Dean Evason says that is not the reason his squad owns a season-high fourgame losing streak after dropping a 3-0 decision to Grand Rapids on Friday night in front of 6,932 fans at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’d like to say we’re not playing good hockey, but we’re actually playing good hockey. That’s hard to say when you lose 3-0, but we had eight scoring chances in the first period and we don’t score.

“In our league, guys go up and down all the time and in and out. It should not affect us one bit. It would be one thing if we weren’t getting opportunities to score or we saw the guys not working. Our work ethic is good. We’re working our butts off. We’re just not getting the results we were earlier in the year.”

Friday morning began with perhaps the most unexpected move of the season, as parent Nashville obtained NHL veteran Cody McCleod from the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Milwaukee’s alternate captain, Felix Girard. The center played in 172 games with the Admirals, including the last 111 in a row.

Shortly after the stunning news of Girard’s departure, Milwaukee defenseman Petter Granberg was recalled by Nashville for the second time this season.

Pontus Aberg, who is second on Milwaukee’s roster with nine goals, was then returned from Nashville after missing the last two Admirals’ games.

And on Thursday, defenseman Alex Carrier, recently named to the AHL All-Star Game, became the 17th Milwaukee player recalled by the Predators this season.

To make matters worse, the Admirals’ next four games are on the road after they played for the fifth time in eight days Friday.

Milwaukee’s offensive struggles not only continued — it has 22 goals in its last 11 games and just two in its last four outings — but the Admirals allowed Central Divisionleading Grand Rapids to attempt six power plays. The Griffins, who entered the game leading the AHL on the man advantage (27.7%), scored on three of them.