The Manitoba Moose (22-15-2-2) tangled with the Milwaukee Admirals (25-15-1-2) on Friday evening at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena. Manitoba was coming off a 3-2 shootout defeat against Rockford on Tuesday night.
Manitoba opened the scoring in the first frame. Kristian Reichel grabbed the puck and charged down the ice alongside Leon Gawanke on an odd-man rush. Reichel hit Gawanke with the pass, which the defenceman then slickly returned on his backhand, allowing Reichel to fire a shot past Yaroslav Askarov. Reichel’s fourth tally of the season was the lone marker of the opening period. Arvid Holm ended the frame with eight stops as Manitoba took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission.
Both Manitoba and Milwaukee were granted a pair of chances on the power play in the second, but neither side was able to find twine. It wasn’t until the final 17 seconds of the period that Milwaukee was able to draw even. Roland McKeown used the chaos of a frantic sequence in front of the Moose net to snap a wrister past Holm for his fifth of the season. Manitoba outshot Milwaukee 11-10 in the second period, but carried a 1-1 tie into the third.
Milwaukee took its first lead of the contest halfway through the third. With the Moose on the penalty kill, Egor Afanasyev sent the puck across the crease for John Leonard to fire home from a sharp angle. With the extra attacker on for the Moose, Leonard added his second of the period into the empty net with 0.9 left on the clock. Holm turned away 26 pucks in the loss, while Askarov captured the win and ended with 28 saves of his own.
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