The Milwaukee Admirals ended a six-year drought and breathed new life into their Calder Cup aspirations with a 3-1 win over Iowa at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena on Thursday night.
It was the Admirals’ first playoff win since Apr. 27, 2013, ending an AHL-record 13-game losing streak in postseason play. They still trail the series, two games to one, but will host Game 4 on Friday night.
After being outscored 13-1 in the first two games of the series, Milwaukee took just 30 seconds to grab the lead in Game 3 as Colin Blackwell crashed the net and banked in the rebound of a Cole Schneider shot.
Mathieu Olivier potted his first career playoff goal at 8:43 of the second period to give the Admirals a 2-0 cushion, and after Kyle Rau got Iowa on the board with a power-play goal at 13:23 of the third, Anthony Richard replied 69 seconds later to make it 3-1.
Yakov Trenin registered three assists and Troy Grosenick (1-2) made 21 saves for Milwaukee.
Central Division Semifinals – Series “F” (best-of-5)
C2-Milwaukee Admirals vs. C3-Iowa Wild
Game 1 – Sun., Apr. 21 – IOWA 7, Milwaukee 0 | Recap
Game 2 – Tue., Apr. 23 – IOWA 6, Milwaukee 1 | Recap
Game 3 – Thu., Apr. 25 – MILWAUKEE 3, Iowa 1
Game 4 – Fri., Apr. 26 – Iowa at Milwaukee, 8:00
*Game 5 – Mon., Apr. 29 – Iowa at Milwaukee, 8:00
*if necessary… All times Eastern