First period is wild in Admirals win over Iowa

MILWAUKEE -- The Admirals scored four straight goals to end the first period as they tallied a 4-2 win over the Iowa Wild on Friday night at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.

Those six goals, which all happened in the first period, were more than the two teams combined to score in their previous two games together (5).

The Ads had ten people find their way onto the score sheet, while only one, defenseman Taylor Aronson with two assists, had a multi-point effort.

Juuse Saros stopped 19 shots for his fourth straight and 21st on the season, which is tops among AHL rookie goalies.

Things started bad for the Admirals as Iowa scored goals at 3:04 and 4:04 of the first period to jump out to an early 2-0 lead. Colton Beck picked up the first tally on a rebound goal, followed exactly one minute later by a breakdown in line change by Milwaukee which resulted in a breakaway tally for Rob Bordson.

Immediately after that Milwaukee coach Dean Evason used his timeout to talk with his club. Whatever he said must have worked as the Ads Max Gortz picked up his team leading 15th goal just 40 seconds after Bordson scored to pull cut the Iowa lead in half at 2-1.

Milwaukee evened the score at 9:11 of the opening stanza on a shorthanded goal by Adam Payerl. With Vladislav Kamenev in the box for high-sticking, Payerl won a foot race to the puck at the Iowa blueline and skated in on Iowa netminder Leland Irving. He slipped the puck five-hole that Irving got a piece of, but couldn't settle completely and Payerl had his 10th goal of the year and second in as many games.

Cody Bass gave the Ads their first lead of the night with a wrister from the left circle that snuck by a screened Irving with just over five minutes to play in the first.

Then with less than a minute to play Kevin Fiala made it 4-2 when he got loose on a breakaway that Irving made the initial stop on, however, Fiala was right there for an easy tap in on the rebound for his 13th red-lighter of the campaign.

That was all the scoring there would be for the rest of the way as Milwaukee won for the fourth time in their past five games.

The Admirals continue a busy weekend when they head to Chicago on Saturday night in Amtrak Rivalry Action. The Ads and Wild will square off again on Sunday afternoon at 5 pm in Des Moines.