Las Vegas coasts to victory

The Journal Sentinel staff

No one can accuse the Milwaukee Admirals of peaking too soon for the playoffs.

The Admirals continued to stumble toward the post-season Tuesday night. As a result, the Las Vegas Thunder walked away with a 3-1 International Hockey League victory at the Bradley Center.

Milwaukee (42-26-10) has now lost four of its last five games. The Admirals have three games remaining in the regular season.

Even the crowd of 8,341 wasn't peeking as many filtered out well before the final horn sounded.

All they missed was Milwaukee's last gasp. Admirals goalie Mark Laforest was pulled in favor of an extra skater with 52 seconds left. But as was the case most of the night, the Admirals could not score.

Las Vegas (45-30-4) looms as a possible second-round playoff opponent for the Admirals, but if that series materializes, it won't be pretty. With the victory, Las Vegas finished with a 5-1 mark against Milwaukee during the regular season.

That statistic didn't seem to concern Admirals coach Phil Wittliff too much after the game.

"Don't make more of this game than it was," he said. "It was just an inconsequential game and we didn't play well enough to win, unfortunately.

"But 10 days from now nobody is going to remember this game. Let's just not make more of this game than it was. It was a game that had no bearing on the final standings."

The fact that the Admirals are struggling heading into the playoffs did not sit too well with some players. Nor did the team's poor regular-season showing against the Thunder.

"That's a team we're probably going to meet down the road," said center Mike Tomlak, who had the lone goal for the Admirals. "It's a team we've got to beat and they've had our number this year. We've just got to play with more grit.

"We're disappointed with the loss, but the main focus is to get the train running."

After Tomlak scored just 3 minutes 50 seconds into the first period, the rest of the game was a disaster for the Admirals. That's because the Thunder reeled off three unanswered goals in the opening period to take control. With the game tied at 1-1, Las Vegas scored twice in a span of 3:12 to seize a 3-1 advantage.

Milwaukee managed to surrender the tie-breaking goal while on a power play.

Copyright 1995
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