Milwaukee, WI—Egor Afanasyev scored a pair of goals and dished out an assist to help power the Admirals to their ninth straight win in a 5-2 victory over the Rockford IceHogs on Friday night at Panther Arena.

The win kept the Ads perfect in 2024 and earned them some revenge over the IceHogs, who were the last team to beat Milwaukee back on New Year’s Eve in Rockford. Milwaukee’s record improves to 26-10-1 on the season, good for 53 points and first place in the Central Division.

Zach L’Heureux chipped in a goal and an assist in the game to extend his scoring streak to five games (4g-4a). His shorthanded tally in the third period was the Admirals league-leading 10th of the season.

In net Yaroslav Askarov stopped 21 shots to earn his 16th win of the season and extend his personal winning streak to nine games as well. Both he and fellow netminder Troy Grosenick have won nine in a row, which is one shy of the team record for consecutive wins by a goalie.

Mark Jankowski continued his white-hot play with a first period goal, his 14th of the season and gives him 11 points (6g-5a) in his past five games and 16 points in the month of January. On the season the Hamilton, ON native is third in the AHL in scoring with 42 points (14g-28a) and first at +27.

Rookie Joakim Kemell returned to the Ads line-up after missing the past four games and picked up a goal 3:34 into the second period to give Milwaukee a lead they would not relinquish.

For Afanasyev he picked up his 18th and 19th goals of the season and needs just one more to become the 39th player in team AHL history to pot 20 in a season. His three-point night his fifth of the season and third in his past six games.

The Admirals will go for lucky number 10 when they wrap up the week by visiting the Chicago Wolves on Saturday night at 7 pm. Their next home game will be on Tuesday, January 30th when they host San Diego at 6:30 pm.