Grand Rapids, MI— Egor Afanasyev and Joakim Kemell gave the Admirals a 2-0 advantage through two periods, but Grand Rapids scored four times in a a3:30 span in the third to take a 4-2 win over Milwaukee in game four of the Central Division Finals.
The loss for the Ads forces a decisive game five on Sunday afternoon at 5 pm at Panther Arena.
Since Karl Taylor took over as Admirals Head Coach in 2018-19 this will be the sixth time the Admirals have played a winner-take-all game five and they are 4-1 in the previous five.
Afanasyev now shows five goals and six points in his past three games while Kemell also has six points in the past three contests (1g-5a).
The Admirals held a 1-0 lead after the first period on Afanasyev’s fourth straight goal for the team over the past two games. Cal O’Reilly held the puck behind the Griffins net and found a crashing Afanasyev, who beat Griffins goalie Sebastian Cossa stick side with exactly six minutes to play in the frame.
Kemell pushed Milwaukee’s lead to two with his first of the post-season when he deflected a Jake Livingstone shot at the 8:38 mark of the second.
The score stayed that way until midway through the third period when the Griffins scored a pair of power-play goals in a 90 second span to tie the game at two. Jonatan Berggren scored the first of his three goals on the night at 8:03 of the third and that was follows by Joel L’Esperance’s second of the playoffs at 9:33.
Berggren scored the game-winner at the 10:06 mark of the final period and then added an insurance goal at 11:33.
The Admirals pulled Troy Grosenick, who had come on in relief late in the third for Yaroslav Askarov, for the final two-plus minutes of the game but were unable to find the back of the net and the Griffins grabbed the win.
