HOUSTON, Texas – After finding themselves at the end of the plank down 3-1 in the West Division finals, the Milwaukee Admirals held off elimination with a 4-3 win over Houston Saturday night.
Having felt like his team came out on the losing end of a winning effort in the previous two games, Milwaukee coach Lane Lambert was happy with both the effort and the result of Game 5.
“[It’s] just the first stop in a long process we’ve got to have in order to claw our way back into the series, but certainly I thought we did a lot of good things tonight,” said Lambert. “We played with a lot of determination and a lot of passion.”
Milwaukee’s Bryan Smolinski and Houston’s Corey Locke each scored twice. Locke was the first on the board at 9:13 with a power play goal, but Smolinski answered less than a minute later with an unassisted goal through the wickets of Houston goalie Anton Khudobin.
The score stayed tied until rookie defenseman Justin Falk lost his footing while covering Smolinski on a rush into the Aeros zone, giving the NHL veteran space to gather the puck and roof it over Khudobin. The goal by the NHL veteran, who signed with Milwaukee just before the series with Houston began, took the game into the first intermission with an Admirals lead.
Milwaukee continued to push in the second putting 19 shots on Khudobin and scoring twice in the process. Andreas Thuresson scored his third goal of the playoffs with helpers from Smolinski and defenseman Mark Matheson, and five minutes later, Kelsey Wilson knocked one in putting the Admirals up by three goals and ending Khudobin’s night in the net in favor of backup Matt Climie.
“I thought we got to their goalie a little bit,” said Lambert. “The Wilson goal was a good bounce out in front, but we crashed the net… and created some opportunities that way.”
The Aeros rallied in the third, with Climie stopping all 16 shots he faced in the second half and Houston scoring twice. Locke got his second power play goal and seventh goal of the playoffs just as an elbowing penalty to Milwaukee’s Hugh Jessiman was ending at 8:52 in the third.
Then Robbie Earl again capitalized on the man advantage created by a hooking penalty on Ryan Maki, putting the Milwaukee penalty kill 0 for 3 on the night.
“If you don’t clear the zone against this team, they have a tremendous power play, and they’ve got a ton of skill and they can make plays,” said Lambert. “Right now we’re turning the puck over when we have it on our stick in a position to get it down the ice, and you cannot continue to give opportunity after opportunity to these guys or it will end up biting you.”
The series returns to Milwaukee Monday night for Game 6 where the Aeros can advance with a win, though Houston has lost all but one Game 6 in its playoff history.
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