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AHL Morning Skate: May 8, 2024 | TheAHL.com

The Milwaukee Admirals are looking to the past as a template for what they hope can be a successful week.

With the Admirals facing elimination by Texas in Game 3 of the best-of-five Central Division Semifinal series tonight, they are tasked with beating the Stars in back-to-back games and even forcing a winner-takes-all Game 5 on Sunday.

A tall order, but they’ve done it before. Milwaukee defeated the Stars the next night at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena on Jan. 19-20. That victory came at the start of what eventually grew to a 19-game hitting streak for the Admirals, the second-longest streak in AHL history.

Take Game 3, then Game 4, and win this series down to one game, Admirals defense Roland McKeown reasons. That being said, the club also knows that doing so will require breaking the cycle.

“We have to know that we can do that again,” McKeown told reporters yesterday. “Then Game 5 is a toss up. Get out there and put your best foot forward, and that’s what we’re going to do.

“Let’s be that team that’s hard to take out.”

The Coachella Valley Firebirds have worked for more than six months for the reward of having home ice on the Western Conference side of the Calder Cup Playoff bracket.

And it’s a big plus for the Firebirds, who will take to the ice of Acrisure Arena tonight for their first home playoff game since Game 7 of last year’s finals.

The Coachella Valley ranked fifth in the AHL in regular season attendance, averaging 8,844 fans per game. The 10,087-seat structure has sold out six times during the 2023 offseason, including four home dates during the Calder Cup Finals.

There are obvious similarities between the Firebirds’ current series against Calgary and last year’s meeting, when the teams split the first two games in Alberta before the Coachella Valley won two of three at home — both in overtime — to advance.

Coach of the Firebirds Dan Bylsma he’s worked on hockey’s biggest stages, including the Stanley Cup Final and the Olympics, and knows exactly what kind of mood fans can set.

“It’s unbelievable,” Bylsma said of the venue at Acrisure Arena. “Our fans and our structure and the atmosphere, it feels like an NHL final. There is a different level in the playoffs in the National Hockey League in terms of the fans and the energy in the building in how they support the team, how they motivate the team. We have that.

“Our fans are electric. Luckily for us, we get it all year, and it’s magnified in the playoffs. It’s almost like we have 10,000 people on the ice playing for us.”

― with files from Patrick Williams


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