Admirals shake slow start to defeat Grizz

WEST VALLEY CITY — The Milwaukee Admirals gave the Utah Grizzlies first-hand knowledge of what they want to be when they grow up Friday night in the E Center.

While the Grizzlies spent much of the game being "afraid of making mistakes," according to assistant coach Gord Dineen, the Admirals burst from a slow first period to put a real hurt on Utah, 7-3.

"After their travel, I think they picked up their level of play," Dineen said of the Admirals, who won at home Thursday night and traveled Friday to Utah, where they will play the Grizzlies again tonight in the E Center at 7 — the fourth time these two teams have met in this young season.

Utah opened the game finishing checks and disrupting Admiral passes, but once Milwaukee scored, with 1:11 left in the first period, that doubt of a team that hasn't won at home in seven tries began creeping back in.

"That's what we have to do to be an effective team," Dineen said of the early first-period play.

"To talk about their team, that's what they do," he said. "They have some skill, but their team is very effective as far as finishing checks. They're very disciplined. They don't give up opportunities.

"That's the type of team we have to pattern ourselves after," said Dineen. "They won a championship doing it. We do it for periods of time. We just don't sustain it."

Milwaukee is the AHL's defending Calder Cup champion and is in first place in the West with a 10-1-1-1 record, while Utah fell to 1-9-0-1 in front of 4,357. It is 0-6-0-1 at home and has a franchise-high seven-game losing streak.

Utah was coming off an eight-day layoff since its last game and "had a good week of practice. We worked on a lot of things," Dineen said.

But a six-goal Milwaukee onslaught — the one in the final 1:11 of the first followed by three more in the second period and the first two scores of the third — left little doubt about who owned this game. Especially when Goal No. 6 came on a short-handed situation and chased starting Utah goalie David LeNeveu, who had made his fourth straight start.

When Jean-Marc Pelletier entered, the Grizzlies suddenly picked up and scored three goals in a six-minute period of the third, but a Milwaukee power-play goal ended that rally, and Utah finished the period killing penalties.

"Guys recognize when you let a goaltender down," Dineen said of Utah's scoring spurt that has to be its incentive tonight. "They didn't want to let a second one down."