It took nearly 53 minutes before the Admirals were able to score their first goal in their 3-1 victory over the Hamilton Bulldogs Wednesday, Nov. 16, at the Bradley Center.

Milwaukee outshot the visiting Bulldogs 41-26 and had many more scoring opportunities in the contest.

Milwaukee’s defense and goaltending were outstanding. Goaltender Pekka Rinne nearly achieved a shutout but was denied when Hamilton lit the lamp with 12.3 seconds remaining.

“I thought he was outstanding,” Head coach Claude Noel said. “He enabled us to win.”

Milwaukee got its first goal after Hamilton’s Michael Lambert was called for hooking. One minute into the powerplay, Milwaukee was dumping the puck into Hamilton’s zone when it caromed off the boards behind Hamilton goaltender Cristobal Huet right onto the stick of Milwaukee’s Darren Haydar who was in front of Huet. Haydar quickly backhanded the puck past Huet for the goal.

“I was the guy going down low and I whacked it in on the backhand,” said Haydar. “It was a lucky bounce that came out.”

The assist on the goal was originally credited to just Timofei Shishkanov, but was later corrected over the loudspeaker to include both Shishkanov and goaltender Rinne. The crowd let out a huge cheer when they heard Rinne also got an assist because of his great goaltending so far in the game.

The victory was Noel’s 100th regular season win in his third season as head coach of the Admirals.

Milwaukee added another goal before Hamilton pulled Huet for an extra skater. Milwaukee took advantage of the empty net as Jordin Tootoo put in the third goal of the game.

Hamilton replaced Huet in the net and it looked as though Milwaukee would come away with the shutout, but Hamilton put one in.

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