Game 4: San Diego v Milwaukee Admirals – Oct 19

With the addition of Max Jones and Troy Terry but the subtraction of Pontus Aberg, the excitement level for this game was very high. Coach Eakins resolved the dilemma of who to scratch on the blueline by icing 7 defenders and 11 forwards. Dotchin however was still not game-ready, and so Oleksy and Benoit shared spots with Larsson. Interestingly Jake Machment was re-inserted – again over Soy – but one has to assume that this was due to the presence of a few heavyweights on the Admirals.

Jones and Terry made their impact almost instantly as the Gulls controlled play for the first five minutes, generating several scoring chances and seeing a power play opportunity. But, the rest of the period failed to really flow as we saw seven minor penalties dished out in total, several of which were during the other team’s power-play. The period ended with the Gulls outshooting the visitors 11-8.

San Diego started out strong in the middle frame and finally broke through – Troy Terry made a clean and easy zone entry on a three on two rush, then proceeded to draw the defense before neatly dishing to Logan Shaw who did not hesitate to bang home the one-timer for the lead.

Two and a half minutes later Terry again found himself with the puck between the hashmarks where he calmly toe dragged around the defense and almost lazily roofed a perfect backhand shot for the 2-0 lead.

From the next five minutes the Gulls had their way with the Admirals. It was as if the sheer presence of Terry and Jones elevated the game of everyone else in a white sweater.

Then – much like a couple of the goals in the last game by the Reign – a breakdown in the Gulls zone and an unlucky bounce resulted in an Admirals strike.

San Diego had a few more good shifts in the Admirals’ zone, including some brilliant passing by the Sideroff, Tropp and Carrick line, but unlucky bounces meant players fanning on shots at the moment of truth and just generally being unable to get the puck to go.

In the final 20 seconds Yakov Trenin came into the Gulls zone with speed and put a shot up high short side that Boyle probably should have had. The period ended 2-2 and shots 12-8 in favor of the visitors.

The third was almost an exact mirror image of the first – highlighted by choppy play and penalties. Neither team capitalized with the man advantage until Troy Terry took a drop pass from Sam Carrick, made some deft moves to get more space and time, then powered a shot by the Admirals goaltender for the Power Play goal and 3-2 lead with two minutes left. His post goal celebration was pretty great too.

Giovanni Fiore grabbed the empty netter to ice it and the Gulls came away 4-2 winners – putting an end to the Admirals 5 game win streak.

Postgame Notes: Sideroff played one of the best games I have ever seen him play, Ben Thomson was good also, Alex Dostie saved a goal late with good hustle on the back-check and Simon Benoit was somehow even better again. Keep an eye on Benoit – he is going places.

Bonus: If you love hearing Felix and Jake breakdown Ducks’ games on the podcast, I think they may be covering this game on a Patreon podcast episode. Check out their patreon for more.