Adirals get a boost from Tomlak

The Journal staff

When the Milwaukee Admirals recently lost left wing Chris Govedaris, who was recalled by the Toronto Maple Leafs and then traded to the Detroit Red Wings on Feb. 17, somebody had to pick up the slack for the 34-goal scorer.

It appears that center Mike Tomlak has taken it upon himself to show that he's no offensive slouch.

Tomlak registered a hat trick and added an assist as the Admirals hung on to beat the Minnesota Moose, 5-3, Saturday before a crowd of 16,140 at the Bradley Center.

With the victory, the Admirals stopped a two-game losing streak and raised their record to 34-18-8, while the expansion Moose fell to 23-25-10. The teams will face each other again at 5 p.m. today at the Bradley Center.

"Tomlak's a quality, quality player," Admirals coach Phil Wittliff said. "He put on a show out there tonight, didn't he?

"You miss {Govedaris'} goals any time, but you try to get them back one way or another."

Tomlak's hat trick, his first of the season, was done the hard way, scoring in short-handed, power-play and even-strength situations.

"Losing Govedaris definitely hurts the offensive end," said Tomlak, who has 25 goals this season and six in his last three games. "We're just going to have to take it upon us individually to try and contribute a little bit more and hopefully it will work out."

Tomlak scored twice in the opening period. He batted in a pass from Brian Dobbin at the 3-minute-39-second mark, then scored a power-play goal at 9:15 when he took a pass from Shawn Evans and had an easy tap into an open net.

The Admirals' Bob Mason, who stopped 29 shots in the game, gave up a power-play goal at 12:43 when Yvon Corriveau fought off Brad Werenka and scored the first of his two goals.

Gino Cavallini equaled his goal total of 43 from last season and gave the Admirals a 3-1 lead in the second period when he rebounded a Tony Hrkac shot in front of the net on the power play at 11:13.

Minnesota sliced the lead to 3-2 with 1:53 left when Sean Williams received the puck about 2 feet in front of Mason and slipped it between the Milwaukee netminder's pads.

Tomlak got his third goal at 4:35 of the final period when he picked up the puck in a short- handed situation, skated down the right side and cut to the middle, where he rifled a shot past Tom Draper.

Minnesota cut it to 4-3 when Corriveau rebounded his own shot at 12:27, and things got interesting when the Moose pulled Draper with 1:25 left.

Mike McNeill was wide on an empty-netter with a defender breathing down his neck, but Sylvain Couturier shut the door with an empty-net goal with 1.5 seconds showing on the clock.

Notes: Defenseman Pat MacLeod sat out Saturday night's game along with left wing Dave Mackey. MacLeod twisted his ankle Friday and is expected to play today, while Mackey is still recovering from a groin injury from earlier in the week. His status is listed as day-to-day.

Copyright 1995
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