Milwaukee, WI—Rem Pitlick scored a pair of goals for the Admirals but it wasn’t enough as they dropped a 3-2 decision to the Grand Rapids Griffins on Saturday night, snapping the a nine-game home-winning streak and an eight game point streak.
The loss was the first at home for Milwaukee since November 1 and it was marked only the second time in their past 22 games that they lost in regulation. Even with the loss the Admirals still sit atop the AHL standings with 51 points courtesy of a 23-5-3-2 record.
Pitlick opened the scoring for the game 8:14 into the opening stanza. Crashing down the left wing Pitlick took a feed from Miikka Salomaki and unleashed a hammer from the face-off dot that beat Griffins goalie Pat Nagle over the shoulder.
The score would stay that way until the middle of the second period when Griffins Captain Matt Ford scored goals at the 9:40 and 16:09 mark to put Grand Rapids up 2-1. Ford’s first goal snapped a string of 173:09 consecutive shutout minutes for Milwaukee over the Griffs, dating to November 22.
Just 1:12 after Ford’s second goal and 12 seconds after the Giffins were whistled for their first penalty Pitlick struck again leveling the game at two. The play started when Daniel Carr dumped the puck to Cole Schneider just the left of Nagle. Schneider dropped the puck between his legs to the other side of the crease where Pitlick corralled it and put it in the net.
However, Turner Elson’s deflection of a Dennis Cholowski shot got by Ads goalie Connor Ingram with less than two minutes to play in the game to give the Griffins the lead back at 3-2.
The Admirals pulled Ingram in favor of an extra attacker for the final minute of the contest but they couldn’t get the equalizer past Nagle and saw their home winning streak come to an end.
The Admirals play their final game of the decade on Sunday afternoon at 3 pm when they travel to Chicago to take on the Wolves. Milwaukee’s next home game is on January 8 when they welcome the Griffins back to Panther Arena for a 7 pm face-off.
Don’t forget to follow the Admirals on Twitter (@mkeadmirals) and on Facebook.
