Troy Grosenick made 28 saves and five of six shoot-out attempts as the Admirals topped the Texas Stars 2-1 in a shoot-out on Friday night at Panther Arena. The win snapped a four-game losing skid for the Ads, but the team does have points in six of their last seven contests.
While the game featured only two goals in the 65 minutes of regulation and overtime, it wasn’t for a lack of chances. Milwaukee fired 36 shots on goal, while the Stars posted 29. It was the fourth time in the past five games that they have had at least 30 shots.
The Admirals got on the board courtesy of some hard work by Admirals forward Laurent Dauphin. Dauphin collected the puck dumped behind the Texas net and took it hard to the right of goalie Jake Oettinger. It was stopped twice but Dauphin stuck with it and eventually crammed the puck between the goalie’s legs for his second of the season with 4:12 remaining in the first period.
The Stars would return the favor midway through the second period courtesy of a Joel L’Esperance power-play marker. The Stars worked the puck around with the man-advantage and eventually caught the Ads scrambling. That’s when Jason Robertson circled the puck into the slot and looked like he would shoot, but at the last second he passed to L’Esperance, who had an easy tap-in.
That would be the extent of the scoring for the remainder of regulation and the five minute overtime session, setting the stage for the Ads third shoot-out of the season.
Colin Blackwell started the shoot-out by beating Oettinger glove side. The next two shooters for each team missed before Robertson extended things to extra rounds his first shoot-out goal of the season. The teams then traded misses until Daniel Carr also scored glove-side for the Admirals and Grosenick shutdown Ben Gleason for the victory.
The Ads are now off for the rest of the weekend. They’ll be back in action on Tuesday night against these same Texas Stars with a 7 pm puck drop at Panther Arena.
Fans can purchase tickets for the game at the team’s office, located at 510 W. Kilbourn Ave, from 9-5 Monday through Friday. In addition, tickets can be purchased over the phone by calling Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000 or at www.milwaukeeadmirals.com. Tickets are also available at the Panther Arena Box Office.
Don’t forget to follow the Admirals on Twitter (@mkeadmirals) and on Facebook.