Admirals take the bite out of Monsters with 3-1 victory
MILWAUKEE -- Juuse Saros was magnificent in goal for the Admirals, stopping 32 of 33 shots he faced to help guide the Admirals to a 3-1 win over the Lake Erie Monsters Saturday night at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.
The win was the 13th in his last 14 starts for Saros, who ran his record to 14-3 on the year.
Rookie forward Max Gortz continued his red-hot play with a pair of first-period power-play goals. He now has 14 points in his past eight games.
Gortz's first of the night put the Admirals up 1-0 early in the first. With the team on the power-play some fancy stick handling by Kevin Fiala drew the attention of the Lake Erie defense and after they converged on him, he dished to Gortz on the left dot and his shot bounced off of Lake Erie Goalie Joonas Korpisalo and into the net at 6:06 of the first.
Another power-play produced the same result for the Ads at with 8:15 to go in the opening frame. From almost the exact same as his first goal, Gortz took a Fiala pass and fired a cannon over the shoulder of Korpisalo.
An unlucky bounce with less than five to play in the first got Monsters to within one at 2-1. Ryan Craig was credited with the goal after his centering pass went off the stick of Ads d-man Jimmy Oligny and into the net.
That was all Milwaukee would need as Saros shut the door on them the rest of the way, turning aside chance after chance by the Monsters, including 14 shots in the third period along.
An empty-netter by Jamie Devan with 15 seconds left in the game sealed the deal and gave the Ads their sixth win in their past seven games.
The Admirals finish off their busiest week of the season tomorrow afternoon when they visit the Rockford IceHogs at 4 pm. Milwaukee's next home game is Tuesday night when they host Lake Erie for a rematch of tonight's contest.