Admirals top IceHogs with 4-1 victory at the BMO Harris Bradley Center

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Predators' first round draft pick Kevin Fiala scored his first two North American goals to help lead the Admirals to a 4-1 victory over the Rockford IceHogs Friday night at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.

The Admirals moved the Admirals into first place in the Midwest Division, with 58 points, which is the same as Rockford but the Ads get the tiebreaker because they have played fewer games.

Marek Mazanec won for the sixth straight game, only allowing one goal of the 24 shots that he faced.
There was only 2:08 left in the first period when Rockford's Cody Bass was able to slip past the last Admirals defense and backhand a shot over Mazanec's glove to open the scoring.

Milwaukee leveled the score with 4:16 gone in the second period when the Admirals Mark Van Guilder found Fiala on the Rockford blue line on a beautiful outlet pass. On the ensuing breakaway Fiala showed off some nice stick handling and lifted a backhand over the glove of Michael Leighton to tie the game at one and score his first pro goal.

The Ads took the lead for good at the 8:53 mark of the second after Joe Piskula's pass deflected off a Rockford skate and right to the slot, where Zach Budish was the first to it and he buried it for his fifth of the season and a 2-1 Ads lead.

Only 1:25 was gone in the third period when the Admirals extended their lead to 3-1 as Austin Watson passed to Ian White on the blue line. White then fired a shot that was deflected by Kevin Fiala and was initially stopped by Leighton. However the rebound came loose and Fiala blasted the puck into an open net for his second goal of the night.

With 1:08 left in the game Viktor Stalberg added an empty-net goal giving the Admirals a 4-1 lead and icing the game.

The Admirals will take on Rockford once again, tomorrow night at 7pm in Rockford before coming back home to host the Rochester Americans Sunday afternoon at 3pm.