Milwaukee, WI—Dressed in their new third-jersey for the first time, the Admirals dropped a 6-3 decision to the Grand Rapids Griffins on Wednesday night at Panther Arena. Anthony Richard, Rocco Grimaldi and Marc Del Gaizo lit the lamp for Milwaukee, who was coming off a five-game roadtrip.
Despite outshooting the Griffins 17-11 in the first period, it was Grand Rapids who held a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes of play, courtesy of goals from Taro Hirose and Jonatan Berggren at 12:31 and 14:08 into the game, respectively.
The Admirals battled back in the second to tie the score when Richard and Grimaldi scored less than three minutes apart. Richard picked up the first one at the 3:21 mark of the second period when he corralled the rebound of a David Farrance shot and beat Griffins goalie Calvin Pickard for his second of the season.
Grimaldi leveled the score at two when he ripped a bomb of a slap shot from the top of the right circle over Pickard’s shoulder 6:09 into the sandwich frame. It was Grimaldi’s third goal in his past two contests and he shows five points (3g-2a) in those games as well.
Less than a minute later the Griffins regained the lead when Dominik Shine cleaned up the loose puck to the right of Ads goalie Connor Ingram.
The score stayed that way until mid-way through the third period when the Ads found themselves on a 5-on-3 advantage. That’s when Marc Del Gaizo took a feed from Grimaldi and hammered a one-timer from between the wheels over Pickard’s glove, knotting the score at three with 7:41 to play.
However, Shine continued to be a thorn in the Admirals side as he scored his second of the night with 4:40 to go in regulation to give the Griffins a lead they would not relinquish. Empty-net tallies from Wyatt Newpower and Kyle Criscuolo brought the final score to 6-3.
The Admirals will look to rebound when they return to the ice on Friday night in Rockford as they take on the IceHogs at 7 pm. Milwaukee returns to home on next Wednesday, December 1st when they battle the Hogs at Panther Arena at 7 pm.
