Iowa Wild Lose Late To Milwaukee Admirals

The frustration is mounting for the Iowa Wild. Each loss is more frustrating than the last. On the back of a two-game winning streak they dropped a game to the Rockford IceHogs on Thursday, losing 1-0 with the sole goal coming with less than seven minutes left in the game.

John Curry stood on his head that game, stopping 41 of 42 IceHogs shots, while Iowa only managed to take 23. It’s tough to lose when your goalie is turning in that kind of performance.

It was the opposite kind of loss on Friday, when Iowa fell 4-3 at the hands of the Milwaukee Admirals.

Johan Gustafsson got the start in what was the second of three straight nights of hockey for the Baby Wild. Gustafsson did not turn in the kind of performance Curry did the night before, facing only 20 shots on the night and allowing four.

That’s frustrating for a Wild team who put up three goals and managed to outshoot the very hot Admirals — who came into the game on an eight-game winning streak — by a margin of 28-20.

Milwaukee opened the scoring in the first on a goal by Viktor Arvidsson less than a minute into the game. The Wild wouldn’t be down long though, as Tyler Graovac buried one past Admirals netminder Marek Mazanec, just over three minutes into the first to even things out. Assists on that goal went to Marc Hagel and Brett Bulmer.

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Milwaukee registered the only goal of the second, a period where they got just six shots off, scoring 1:10 into the period on a power play caused by a Michael Keranen tripping call late in the first.

In the third, Milwaukee again opened the scoring, with Richard Clune beating Gustafsson to extend the Admiral lead to 3-1. But under a minute after the Clune goal Zack Mitchell put one in for Iowa, with assists to Kurtis Gabriel and Graovac.

Just over a minute after the Mitchell goal, Matt Dumba scored from the point to even things up, with assists to Jonathon Blum and Stephane Veilleux. The Dumba marker made it three total goals in the first 3:36 of the third period.

The game would remain tied for another 10 minutes, until there was just under seven minutes left in regulation. That’s when Austin Watson buried what would be the game-winner.

With that loss the Wild remain the owner of a league-worst 32 points, with the 15-25-1-1 record keeping them at the bottom of the division, conference, and league. Things looked up on their “take what you can get” two-game winning streak — and there are some things that look vastly improved from earlier in the season — but they’re still struggling to steal games like Thursday’s and to win games when they outplay the opposition.

Out of the lineup on Friday was Gustav Olofsson (injured), Josh Harding (injured), Guillaume Gelinas, Benjamin Dieude-Fauvel, Brady Brassart, Joel Rechlicz, Ruslan Fedotenko, and Nicholas Rioux.