Admirals falter with chance to clinch berth.
Blown lead delays clinching
Milwaukee had a chance to clinch an American Hockey League playoff berth Saturday night, but after blowing a twogoal lead, the Admirals will have to wait a few more hours.
Texas scored the final five goals — including two empty-netters — to beat Milwaukee, 5-2, in front of 5,969 fans at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
“We tried to make it 6-0 after it was 2-0,” Admirals coach Dean Evason said.
Even if Milwaukee won, the team needed help from Chicago against Cleveland to qualify for the playoffs for the 13th time in 14 years. The Admirals’ next chance is another home game with the Stars at 3 p.m. Sunday.
The last time the two teams met, visiting Milwaukee hammered Texas, 9-1, on Dec. 17. This time, the Admirals lost their first game in regulation — and third overall — when leading after the first period.
“I feel like we got our goals real quick, and sometimes when that happens as a group, you kind of tend to feel like almost sit back in a way because you do have a two-goal lead,” Trevor Murphy said. “The short-handed goal they got, that shouldn’t happen. They got two bang-bang quick goals. We played a pretty solid game, but we always say, when we give teams goals, we’re shooting ourselves in our foot.”
Milwaukee scored the first two goals of the game in the first period and Texas netted the only two of the second period.
Milwaukee’s Pontus Aberg, who entered the game third in the American Hockey League with 28 goals, added another one when he scored on the power play with 14:41 left. It was his 14th goal in his last 15 games.
Murphy hadn’t scored in his last 18 games when he made it 2-0 with a goal with 6:01 left.
But after Milwaukee kept Texas from scoring on a 4-minute power play midway through the second, things fell apart for the Admirals.
The Stars got on the board with a short-handed goal from Denis Gurianov with 6:11 left, and 1:30 later the score was tied thanks to a Milwaukee turnover that led to a 2on-1 breakaway goal from Brandon DeFazio.
“We gave them two goals,” Evason said. “We tried to stick handle through their penalty-kill forecheck, which we talked to the group about that. That can’t happen. They try to go through people one on one, turn it over, and nobody’s back there, so we give them a breakaway goal.
“We have the puck 10 feet inside their blue line, and two guys try to beat a guy on the wall, and we turn it over. It goes back 2on-1 and it’s in the back of the net. The game changed right away.”
Texas scored the goahead goal on a shot from the right side of the wall from Nick Ebert that went in past Milwaukee goalie Marek Mazanec with 13:53 left in the third.
The Stars added their empty-net goals in the final 1:09 for their fourth win in their last 12 games.
Sunday special: Tickets for the rematch Sunday afternoon are discounted as low as $5, with $3 from every ticket sold being donated to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.