Admirals’ Offense Breaks Out in Win Over Marlies

The lack of offense through the first seven games of the season appeared to be taking a toll on the Milwaukee Admirals. Patience and trusting the process was preached during media interviews.

Essentially, it was a matter of time before that the dam would burst and it did Wednesday morning.

Egor Afanasayev scored two of his three goals during a second-period flurry and Milwaukee set a single-game high for scoring this season with a 7-3 win over the Toronto Marlies at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena in a School Day Game.

Four other players also scored, Mark Jankowski collected three assists and Troy Grosenick — who got the start after Yaroslav Askarov reportedly left practice Tuesday with either an illness or an injury — made 20 saves as the Admirals (4-4-0-0) moved back to .500.

“It’s Game 8, right? It feels like we won a championship or something today,” Milwaukee Head Coach Karl Taylor said in an interview on the team’s YouTube channel following the game. “I felt we just needed a win today.”

The Admirals scored one goal in each of their last two games — losses Thursday at Iowa and at home to Grand Rapids on Saturday.

But after an evenly matched opening period in which Grosenick and Marlies counterpart Martin Jones each stopped the nine shots they faced, it looked as if this would be another grind-it-out, low-scoring game. Milwaukee came into the contest having scored just 14 goals this season, but also allowing a total of 14 goals.

All that changed in a hurry in the second period.

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Tye Felhaber got the Admirals on the board at 3:06 with his second goal in as many games. Just 1:12 after that, Afanasyev collected his fourth of the season.

Before Jones — the longtime NHL veteran with Los Angeles, San Jose, Philadelphia and Seattle — could clear his head and focus on the game at hand, Afanasyev’s wrister from the slot made it 3-0 at 4:41.

Coming in, the Admirals had scored at least three goals in a game once this season. Now, Milwaukee scored three times in a 95-second span. delighting the crowd of 9,206 for the morning start.

That blitz ended Jones’ day as Keith Petruzzelli took over between the pipes.

Reid Schaefer extended Milwaukee’s lead to 4-0 at 8:26 with his first pro goal, flicking in a pass from Spencer Stastney on a 2-on-1 rush.

But what looked like a laugher turned into a nail-biter. Toronto got power play goals from Nick Abruzzese (with less than seven minutes to play in the second) and Joseph Blandisi (who scored with the man advantage with 9:41 left in the contest).

Joakim Kemell restored Milwaukee’s three-goal edge 96 seconds later with a one-timer from the slot. But just nine seconds after that, the Marlies’ Kieffer Bellows made it 5-3.

Afanasyev capped his big day with an empty-net goal with 2:10 to play. The 22-year-old Russian has six goals in eight games after collecting 13 in 57 contests last season.

For good measure, Jordan Gross added his first goal of the season 57 seconds later.

Grosenick finished with 20 saves for his first win of the season.

“Winning is fun. We all know that. Scoring goals is fun. Hopefully we can build on what we did today,” Taylor said.

THREE STARS

1. Egor Afanasyev, Milwaukee: Doubled his goal total for the season with his first career hat trick.
2. Reid Schaefer, Milwaukee: First pro goal for the 20-year-old.
3. Roland McKeown, Milwaukee: Defenseman played his 400th AHL game.

COMING UP

The Admirals close out the week on Friday and Saturday with match-ups against the Texas Stars in the Lone Star State. Milwaukee opened its 2023-24 home schedule with a 3-2 loss to Texas on Oct. 21, but two of the Admirals’ wins this season have come on the road.