Admirals Stat-urday: Home Is Where The Scoring Is

1 - Goaltender Frederik Andersen earned his first North American professional/AHL/Admirals point with an assist on an Emerson Etem goal vs Bridgeport on Wednesday.

2 - The Admirals currently sit in 2nd place in the East Division, 4 points behind last year's Admirals' roster players, the Syracuse Crunch (Tampa Bay). The Hershey Bears (Washington) trails by only a point, but Norfolk has 1 game in hand on both Syracuse and Hershey.

3 - Igor Bobkov and Frederik Andersen have 3 wins each.

4 - Norfolk is 4-0 when leading after the first period and 5-0 when leading after two periods.

5 - Admirals' forward Kyle Palmieri seems to enjoy playing at home. He's racked up 7 assists in the last 5 home games; his personal streak at home is 10 points in 6 games.

6 - The Admirals are 6-1 when scoring the first goal. In 9 games, the Admirals have scored first 7 times.

7 - Norfolk has allowed 7 goals against in 3 games away from Scope (2.33) vs 18 goals against in 6 games at home (3.00)

8 - Admirals' Defenseman Sami Vatanen is ranked 8th in the AHL points among defensemen with 2 goals and 7 assists for 9 points in 9 games.

9 - With 9 games down, Admirals defenseman and Captain Nate Guenin continues to lead the league in plus-minus with a plus-12.

10 - Alternate Captain Troy Bodie led the Admirals with 10 penalty minutes vs Bridgeport on Wednesday. He leads the team overall with 28 total minutes.

- For the second weekend in a row, Norfolk split a series with the opposing team. Two weeks ago the Admirals traveled to St John's (Winnipeg) and split the series by losing Saturday, 3-2, and winning Sunday with a 2-0 shutout by Igor Bobkov. The following weekend, the Binghamton Senators (Ottawa) visited Scope and took Friday's game 4-3 but lost to the Admirals 4-2 the next night.

- The Admirals had not had their "team toughness" challenged this season until this past Wednesday when they visited Bridgeport (New York Islanders). Norfolk has not been a heavy hitting team despite the size on the roster, but the Sound Tigers came out of the gates hitting anything and everything that moved, which clearly knocked the Ads off their game.

- A sure way to recognize a team that has lost focus is to watch the number of fighting majors [Ed. Note: I'm looking at you Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and Bobby Ryan]; the mentality being that if a team can't beat its opponent on the scoreboard, they'll at least send a message that they won't be pushed around. Bridgeport goaded the shell-shocked Admirals in to 5 fights. It was clear from the pace of the game that Norfolk was frustrated that it couldn't find its groove. Bodie, Ryan Parent, Jay Rosehill, and John Kurtz all dropped the gloves.

- It was pretty clear from the first few minutes of the period, the Sound Tigers would dictate the play. Hopefully this serves as a wake-up call for the Admirals and provided the type of inspiration one might see in a movie when the team pulls together to stick up for each other. [Ed. Note: Scott, have you seen this one Disney movie about a ragtag group of kids...]