The Manitoba Moose (3-0-1-0) continued their first road swing of the season when they took on the Milwaukee Admirals (1-2-0-0) Saturday evening at UWM- Panther Arena. It was the second of three games in three nights against Central Division foes for Manitoba.
Manitoba opened the scoring in the first. The Moose had a chance on the man-advantage where Declan Chisholm found a Jansen Harkins rebound and fired a hard shot past Yaroslav Askarov for a 1-0 Moose lead. The Admirals had a pair of opportunities on the power play, but Arvid Holm was solid in the first and turned away all 13 shots he faced. Manitoba took the 1-0 lead into the first intermission, despite being outshot by a count of 13-5.
Manitoba converted less than 30 seconds into the middle stanza, Alex Limoges stole the puck and passed to Harkins. The forward got everything on the shot to find twine for a 2-0 Manitoba lead. Milwaukee responded later in the frame. With the Moose in the box, Mark Jankowski took a pass and wired a hard shot past Holm to pull the Admirals within one. Minutes later, the Admirals were granted a penalty shot, but Holm denied Phil Tomasino to keep the Moose ahead. The Moose netminder made a ten-bell stop a couple minutes after that as the Admirals swarmed the crease. The horn sounded to end the back-and-forth middle frame with the Moose leading 2-1 but trailing 21-17 in shots.
Manitoba restored the two-goal lead early in the third. A shot from Leon Gawanke rebounded off the end boards and skipped near the side of the net. Jeff Malott pounced and forced it home to push Manitoba ahead 3-1. Milwaukee fought back and pulled within one with a Tommy Novak goal off a defensive giveaway. Manitoba kept working and restored their lead once again. Kristian Reichel was able to lift a backhand past Askarov after a scramble in front. That gave Manitoba a 4-2 lead just about halfway through the final frame. Milwaukee pulled the netminder in favour of the extra attacker, but Brad Lambert got a hold of the puck, skated it down the ice and found the empty net. Manitoba claimed its second 5-2 road victory in a row. Holm finished with the win and 33 stops, while Askarov was tagged with the loss and made 25 saves of his own.