The Norfolk Admirals returned home to Scope Wednesday after opening the first two games of the playoffs on the road against the Manchester Monarchs. Following the loss in game one on Friday, Norfolk’s Max Friberg, David Steckel, and William Karlsson silenced the top seeded team in the East on Saturday as they each netted a goal. Karlsson’s goal was the deciding factor that brought the series to Norfolk tied at one.
Norfolk managed to tie the series without the help of Devante Smith-Pelly and Emerson Etem both whom were recalled by Anaheim before the opening round against Manchester.
Gibson vs Berube
Both goalies have split wins so far in the opening round. J.F. Berube received the win Friday while John Gibson edged Berube Saturday night. Before game three Berube had the edge over Gibson in the GAA department with a 1.52 GAA while Gibson started game three with a 2.02 GAA.
Norfolk Scoring
Maxime Sauve 14:51 (OT) Assists- Max Friberg, Matt Bailey
Post Game Quotes From Coach Yawney
“They’re a good team they don’t give much, so you can’t give them much. In the second period, they pushed us back on our heels a little bit. Once we regrouped, we started playing the right way, playing simple and started to generate some chances and some momentum.”
“We switched up the lines there a little bit that gave us some juice. He (Sauve) scored in this league before. He’s been in and out of the lineup, but he’s a guy that we count on. Now that we’re depleted in the scoring department, it’s guys like him that have to step up and he did and I thought he played really good tonight.”
“It’s always nice to play three at home, but we don’t make the schedule and people have to agree to it and we’re not going to apologize for it. No one was apologizing for us having to go nine hours at the end of the year for one game. We’re not going to apologize because that was given to us.”
“We’re not going to have any success if we are not going to have any goaltending, I don’t care who we have in our lineup. You can look at any of the teams in the National League that are playing right now. We were the lowest scoring team in the playoffs and we are not going to apologize for that. We got in by defending our way in. We had good goaltending and our penalty kill has been good, but he’s (Gibson) a competitive guy and as long as we can score him one he can usually close the door.”
Post Game Quotes From Max Sauve
“It’s just put the puck on net, coach always says that and we all do it and it went in.”
“The guy just came on me and Maxy Friberg made a great play down the boards and gave the puck to me and my first reaction was to shoot it.”
Post Game Quotes From John Gibson
“We looked forward to coming home and playing in front of the fans and we got a win.”
“Anytime you get to play playoff hockey, it’s exciting. We’re trying to make the most of it and hopefully we’ll get another win.”
Norfolk’s Forward Lines
Petersson-Kerdiles-Friberg
Gagne-Bailey-Wagner
Laganiere-Steckel-Whitney
Kurtz-Sauve-Stortini
Norfolk’s D-Pairings
Exelby-Manson
Vatanen-Eminger
Blacker-Yonkman
Things You May Have Overlooked
Darcy Burchell and Tom Chmielewski officiated game three while John Grandt and Mark Hamlett manned the lines.
Norfolk’s John Gibson stopped all of Manchester’s 35 shots en route to his first professional shutout victory.
Manchester’s J.F. Berube allowed one goal on Norfolk’s 31 shots.
Special teams were not a factor as both teams failed to convert on the Power Play.
Norfolk gained the services of Norm Ezekiel and Charlie Sarault from ECHL Utah as both transactions took place on April 28th.
With Wednesday’s overtime win the Admirals are one game away from eliminating the top seeded team in the Conference in the best of five series.
Attendance- 3076
Follow Ted on Twitter @Bauerhockeydude
