Admirals Start Slow but Finish Strong In 6-2 Win Over Charlotte

Final Score: Norfolk 6, Charlotte 2

First Period Recap: From the start the Admirals looked pretty terrible and I am sure many of 5,568 fans in attendance were preparing for the worst.

There wasn't a whole lot of defense being played and the Admirals were chasing a lot of red jerseys. Three minutes in, the Checkers got on the scoreboard first on a 4-on-3 power play goal. Rod Pelley broke his stick on the face off effectively making it a 4-on-2 and Chris Terry scored his 21st goal of the season. They only gave up only one power play goal on what ended up being eight chances for the Checkers. Just under five minutes later the newly reassigned Zac Dalpe scored his 19th goal of the season for Charlotte.

The Admirals decided at this point that they needed to wake up. Brandon McMillan started the momentum back the Admirals way 28 seconds later, shoving the puck under Checkers goalie John Muse. Dan Sexton and Sami Vatanen earned the assists.

Second Period Recap: Just 3:17 into the second period McMillan tied the game up after an aggressive forecheck by Norfolk; he got the puck right between the circles and beat Muse again. Chris Wagner wanted to get in on the scoring frenzy and he did after Jordan Hendry centered the puck to him from the corner, John Kurtz received the secondary assist.

The Admirals scored their third goal in just over 4 minutes when Peter Holland accepted a pass from Devante Smith-Pelly from behind the net and finished the play with some patience. 12 seconds after the goal Nicolas Blanchard tried to grab some momentum for his Checkers by fighting Troy Bodie but it did nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Third Period Recap: The Admirals had to kill off three power plays in the final 20 minutes to help secure their victory and they definitely stood tall. Later Holland scored his second of the night just seconds after he exited the penalty box. Sami Vatanen got his second assist of the night on the play.

Mr. Blanchard tried to goon it up some more playing a full shift of reckless hockey until he finally got called for checking to the head and then tried to start a fight with Mat Clark; he received a two minute minor and a 10 minute misconduct for his hard work.

With just nine seconds left in the game something happened for only the second time this season - Holland scored a hat trick. DSP shot the puck in from the blue line and it took a deflection off of Luca Caputi and then Holland kicked it off his skate and back handed it top shelf into the net to net his 19th goal of the season.

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The Great: Holland got the hat trick and everyone got free wings!

The Good: The Anaheim prospects combined for 12 points tonight, 6 goals and 6 assists.

The Bad: The reffing was...sub-par but you still can't be happy giving up 8 power plays.

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Next Game: Saturday, Mar. 2, 7:00pm EST at Hershey