Milwaukee ran out to a 3-0 lead midway through the second and the Checkers’ suddenly-struggling offense was unable to muster any answers. The home team finally broke up rookie netminder Juuse Saros’ shutout via a Drayson Bowman strike in the final minute of regulation, but it was too little, too late, and the Checkers dropped their second consecutive contest.
The Checkers are working with an injury-ravaged blue line, with just five healthy defensemen, forcing head coach Mark Morris to turn to forward Kyle Hagel as his sixth man. Those deficiencies on the back end were exploited by a surging Admirals offense and Milwaukee made them pay.
“We’re playing really shorthanded right now,” said Morris. It’s really hard to find any chemistry with our back end being so nicked up. I didn’t like a couple of the goals that were scored today. We weren’t great defensively in the early part of the game and that happened to be the difference.”
That’s not to shortchange the effort put in by the makeshift defensive corps, who were thrown into a less than ideal situation and made do.
Rookie Rasmus Tirronen manned the crease for the Checkers, making his third start of the season and coming away with his first pro loss. With Drew MacIntyre seeing the bulk of the action so far, the young netminder had a shot tonight but couldn’t keep the Admirals’ attack at bay.
“I’ve seen him better,” said Morris. “His confidence is a little bit suspect right now. He’s a great kid and I’m sure he’s going to continue to work to build it up so he can be a guy that can play on an everyday basis.”
The Checkers have shown an ability to put pucks in the net throughout the season, entering tonight’s contest with the seventh-best goals per game average in the AHL. But they came up mostly empty tonight, partly due to the stellar play of Saros. For Morris, the key to turning that around starts at the top.
“It starts with our scorers having to pick up the pace and find the back of the net,” said Morris. “We had some chances today that we could have been up 4-3 even after we gave up three. In the second period we had some stellar chances, just us and the goalie, and guys couldn’t find the back of the net. Those are the guys that were brought here to do it and we’re hopeful that whoever scores is going to start with more regularity with getting those pucks across the goal line. Right now it’s been very frustrating in that regard.”
“It’s the group as a whole right now,” said Justin Shugg. “You can’t always rely on specialty teams all the time and right now we’re not finding a way to score five-on-five goals which are backbreaking when you are scoring them.”
While this weekend’s sweep is frustrating downturn for the Checkers, there is a sense of optimism and positivity that they can turn it around, especially from the leadership group.
“This is the most talented team that I’ve played with in my pro career and we just need to believe that,” said Hagel. “You’ve got to be positive and smart with guys and pump guys up and remind them that they’re fantastic hockey players. As a leadership group on the team, if we stay positive and keep encouraging each other, that will help with the swagger and the confidence.”
Shugg pointed to a similar key to shaking this weekend off.
“This game is full of confidence,” said Shugg. “As a player you have to be responsible and you have to be accountable. You have to know your role within the team.”
Heading into a road trip through Texas next week, Morris made it clear that there was work to be done.
“I don’t want to make excuses, but the fact is that we’ve been decimated and we’ve given up some goals that weren’t really stellar through coverages and ones that found their way into the back of the net,” said Morris. “We need better all the way around.”