MILWAUKEE BLANKS THE ICEHOGS 4-0
Rockford, Ill.- The Milwaukee Admirals blanked the Rockford IceHogs 4-0 on Saturday at the Rockford MetroCentre in the final regular season home game for the IceHogs in the 2009-10 season.
"I don't think we played very well and we weren't very desperate early," Head Coach Bill Peters said. "I don't think we got out of the gate well."
For Milwaukee's first goal, Andreas Thuresson and Dave Scatchard led a two-on-one breakaway into the offensive zone and scored to put the Admirals up 1-0 over the IceHogs. Thuresson passed the puck across to Scatchard, who fired a shot over Hannu Toivonen's blocker into the back of the net. Teemu Laakso was also credited with an assist.
Then with the Admirals on the power play, Marty Murray passed the puck to Thuresson who then buried his 13th goal of the season at 8:30. Laakso tallied his seventh assist on the season, his second on the night.
"We have to get it turned around," Peters said. "We have to find guys who can play for 60 minutes and play the game hard on a consistent basis. It's gotten away from us. We don't work as hard as we once did."
The Admirals added another goal at the 4:57 mark of the second period. Mike Santorelli tallied his 24th goal of the season on assists by Thuresson and Laakso. And in the third period, Hugh Jessiman posted his 20th goal of the season at 1:43 with helpers from Jonathan Blum and Santorelli to put the game out of reach.
"If you look on the score sheet tonight, you'll see Milwaukee's leading scorers all over it and ours aren't on it," said Peters.
Rockford was held off the board on four opportunities on the power play, while Milwaukee was successful on one of their three chances. Toivonen took the loss on 16 saves, while Mark Dekanich stopped all 29 shots he saw.
Playoff Tickets: Tickets for the first two possible home Calder Cup Playoff games for the Rockford IceHogs are now on sale. Tickets can be purchased at the MetroCentre Box Office, metrocentre.com or by calling (815) 968-5222.