A third-period rally quiets the Thunder

The Journal staff

There would be no hanging heads and going through the motions as the Milwaukee Admirals took the ice trailing by a goal going into the third period.

Granted, their opponent, the Las Vegas Thunder, was 21-0-1 when leading after two periods entering the game Wednesday night, and to top it off, Milwaukee was 0-2-1 this season and 1-4-6 lifetime against Las Vegas.

The Bradley Center crowd of 5,829 was in for a surprise, though, as three third-period goals sparked a 6-5 comeback victory that coach Phil Wittliff proclaimed was his team's biggest of the season.

Brian Dobbin scored the game-winner when he poked a missed shot by Chris Govedaris past Thunder goalie Clint Malarchuk at 12 minutes 15 seconds.

Malarchuk was trying to control Govedaris' shot with his stick when Dobbin took it away and angled it past the Las Vegas goalie for his 15th goal of the season.

With the victory, the Admirals improved to 32-16-7, while the Thunder fell to 31-22-3.

"This is really a big win for us as far as the whole season is concerned," said Wittliff, whose team has a franchise-high 10 victories when trailing going into the final period. "You can argue that there aren't many big wins when you play 81 games a season, but this one was big.

"We've been struggling for the last week or so, and this is a major steppingstone for us."

Over in the other locker room, Las Vegas coach Bob Strumm was not as pleased as Wittliff.

"We gave the game away," he said. "Milwaukee made a bigger mental and physical commitment to win the game than we did. We have no excuses."

The Admirals trailed by 4-2 late in the second period when captain Gino Cavallini put some life into his team with his team- high 39th goal of the season on the power-play with 16.4 seconds left in the period.

The Admirals tied it up with another power-play goal at 7:04 of the third period when Sylvain Couturier took a pass from Tony Hrkac right in front of the Thunder's net. Couturier stood with the puck for 5 seconds before Malarchuk helplessly watched on his back as Couturier flipped it out of reach.

Pat MacLeod gave the Admirals a 5-4 lead a little more than a minute later when Hrkac, who finished with three assists, found him streaking down the middle, and MacLeod blasted it past Malarchuk.

Milwaukee's lead would be short-lived as Las Vegas scored 1:37 later on a somewhat controversial goal by Jarrod Skalde, who appeared to be occupying a little too much of Mark Laforest's space in the crease.

A shot by former Admiral Jose Charbonneau deflected in off Skalde's stick to give him a hat trick on the night and make it 5-5.

"With the experience we've got, we don't panic and we don't try to go for the home run right at the beginning of the period," said Couturier, who had two assists in addition to his goal. "We were patient tonight, and it worked out."

After Dobbin's goal, the Admirals' work was not finished.

Laforest stopped five shots in the final minute and the Thunder pulled Malarchuk with 52 seconds left for the man advantage.

Things got interesting as a holding penalty on Brad Werenka gave the Thunder a two-man advantage with 25 seconds left.

But a lineup containing Mike Tomlak, Ken Sabourin, Mike McNeill and Dave Mackey shut down Las Vegas.

Copyright 1995
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