Minnesota provides a surprise

The Journal staff

Going into their game Saturday night, the Milwaukee Admirals had beaten up on their Central Division foes in a relatively easy fashion, sporting a 16-2-1 mark.

The last-place Minnesota Moose, losers of four games without a victory against Milwaukee this season, decided they weren't going to be pushed around any more.

The Moose used two goals and an assist from Stephane Morin and took advantage of a lackluster Admirals' effort en route to a 4-1 victory before a crowd of 12,931 at the Bradley Center.

With the loss, the Admirals, still comfortably in first place in the Central Division, fell to 31-16-7, while the expansion Moose improved to 21-22-9.

"We didn't think we'd beat them every time," said Admirals coach Phil Wittliff, whose team was playing its fourth game in five nights. "They bottled us right up. They just outplayed us, plain and simple. We have nobody to blame on this one."

Minnesota grabbed a 3-1 lead 2 minutes 23 seconds into the final period when Morin scored his second goal of the game after Milwaukee goalie Mark Laforest roamed a little too far out of the crease.

Former Admirals player Todd Hawkins put the game away when he scored a shorthanded goal at 10:22 and 6 seconds remaining on Milwaukee's power play.

"Our power play was not very good tonight," said Wittliff, whose team couldn't convert on six chances on the night with the man-advantage. "Actually, nothing worked very good tonight."

Milwaukee, which has scored only 11 goals in its last five games (a 2.2 average), grabbed a 1-0 lead with 2:08 left in the opening period when Tony Hrkac found Sylvain Couturier open in front of the net and Couturier blasted it past Tom Draper for his 23rd goal of the season.

The Admirals dug their own hole when Minnesota grabbed the lead with a pair of goals in a span of 8:41 in the second period.

First, Yvon Corriveau knotted the game at 1-1 when he stuck home his own missed shot at the 4:17 mark. Then, Morin, who entered the game Saturday ranked fourth in the International Hockey League in scoring, picked up a power-play goal in a 5-on-3 situation at 12:58.

Afterward, It wasn't hard for Minnesota coach Frank Serratore to shell out the kudos to his team.

"This was huge," he said. "I think Milwaukee is the best team in the league. We didn't give up a whole lot and our specialty teams were very good."

Copyright 1995
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