Admirals thwart IceHogs in regular season home finale
(Courtesy: Milwaukee Admirals)
MILWAUKEE - Fedor Svechkov scored a goal and dished out two assists to pace the Milwaukee Admirals offense as they defeated the Rockford IceHogs 6-3 in front of a sold out crowd on Saturday in the team's regular season home finale.
Egor Afanasyev scored a pair of goals for the Admirals, giving him four in just two games this week, while Juuso Parssinen (2a), Carson Gicewicz (2a), Jordan Gross (1g-1a), and Reid Schaefer (1g-1a) all notched multipoint efforts as the Admirals won for the 27th time on home ice this season, their most home wins since the 2005-06 campaign.
Yaroslav Askarov stopped 20 shots to earn his 30th win of the season, which is the second most in the league. He became the seventh netminder in Admirals AHL history to top the 30-win plateau and the first since Anders Lindback back in 2017-18.
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The Admirals jumped out to a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes of play courtesy of goals from Afanasyev and Svechkov, but Michal Teply scored 2:13 into the second to cut the lead to 2-1.
Gross’ sixth goal of the year pushed the lead back to two at 7:58 of the second, but Teply scored again to cut the Milwaukee lead to 3-2.
Schaefer lead off the scoring in the third period when he corralled the rebound of a Marc Del Gaizo goal at 2:50, but once more the IceHogs pulled within one on Isaak Phillips fourth goal of the year at 4:54 of the third.
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However, Kevin Wall gave the Admirals more insurance when he deflected a Gross shot at 12:50 of the final stanza and then Afanasyev iced the game with an empty net goal with six seconds to play, his 27th of the season.
The sell-out crowd was the third of the season and gave the team an average attendance of 6,139 for 36 home games, their highest attendance since moving to UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena in 2016-17.
The Admirals wrap-up the regular season on the road when they take on the Grand Rapids Griffins on Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. CT.