Gameday Preview: Texas Stars at Milwaukee Admirals

Texas Stars 5-2-0-0, 10 pts #4 Pacific Division

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Milwaukee Admirals 1-3-0-0, 2 pts #6 Central Division

October 27th at 7:00 PM

BMO Harris Bradley Center, Milwaukee, WI

If you're not seeing this one on the pocket schedule, don't worry. Tonight's Milwaukee v. Texas contest is a reschedule. The Admirals aren't the only tenants at the Bradley Center and gave up their December 4th date against the Stars so that Amy Schumer could visit.

No matter. Texas was already in the Midwest early in the season and extended their trip by a few days to work in the change. The schedule shift probably works in Texas' favor as they would have been coming off a 4 game California swing with just two days at home before hitting the road again in December.

Milwaukee is one of those Western clubs that is lucky enough to have an independent voice in the online media sphere. Once again, I've asked Daniel Lavender of Ads Roundtable to answer just a few questions about the team in preparation for the game tonight:

HDH: Milwaukee missed the playoffs for the first time in many years last season. What changes has the team made (or not) to get back to winning ways?

DL: The honest truth is that not a lot has changed in terms of systems for the Admirals. If anything, the veteran core that has helped provide playoff hockey to Milwaukee in the past have all exited this off-season: Joe Piskula, Mark Van Guilder, Magnus Helberg, Triston Grant, Scott Ford, Mike Liambas. What you get instead is a young team back from last season that took the end of the season slump as a learning experience and are hoping to take bigger steps both as a team and as individuals. This is about as deep of a talent pool as I've seen with the Admirals in awhile and it's going to make watching our ECHL affiliate fun to boot.

HDH: Who are the new roster additions that we should be on the look out for?

DL: Kevin Fiala is back and eager to prove his claim to NHL hockey this season. Vladislav Kamenev, Max Görtz, Juuse Saros, and Kristian Näkyvä are all making their North American professional debuts this season. Plus last season's top goal scorer in the KHL Stevie Moses is with us at the moment. Out of all the new names the one with the biggest potential star power to me is Saros who has dazzled in his first three outings in net despite the wins not showing for him. He is a tiny goalie compared to your prototypical 6'5" Nashville Predators goaltending talents but reads the game so fast that he more than makes up for his lack of size with his instincts and speed.

HDH: Texas/Dallas and Milwaukee/Nashville provide interesting mirror images of each other. Texas/Dallas seem to concentrate on offense and Milwaukee/Nashville on defense. Can this Milwaukee team find scoring in their lineup to match up with high scoring teams? If so, where from?

DL: Right now I find myself crying for Kevin Fiala's offensive game to get going at some point. He has looked as though he is still down on himself for getting cut by Nashville in their pre-season camp to be honest. Should the fire get going for him again he can be this team's spark plug. Since he hasn't so far... the offense has been a hodgepodge of offense wherever we can get it from. The most consistent forwards have been the ones playing a more simple game such as Vladislav Kamenev, Felix Girard, and Frederick Gaudreau. The man who might be coming in to show everyone how it is done though is Viktor Arvidsson who led the team in scoring last season and was reassigned to the Admirals on Sunday. If the Ads are getting into an end-to-end scoring bout - Arvidsson is going to need to be our everything right away.

Stars injury/call up report:
Campbell, McKenzie, Faksa (callup)

Admirals Web Resources:
Website: milwaukeeadmirals.com
Team blog: In The Crease
Online media: Admirals Roundtable (@adsroundtable)
Twitter: @mkeadmirals