The Colorado Eagles wrapped up the road series against the Milwaukee Admirals depressingly. What turned out to be a goalie battle last night was certainly not the case tonight. The Admirals came on strong, completely the opposite of last night. The Eagles that were in Iowa did not show up to Milwaukee, but they walked away with one point in the weekend. Colorado was shutout for the second straight game against one of the top goalies in the AHL, Yaroslav Askarov, who has a 2.14 goals against average. Here are the quick hits from the 5–0 loss in Milwaukee.
Quick Hits
— Wyatt Aamodt, who normally plays as a defenseman, played the entire road trip as a forward. He was impressive with his speed and willingness to go to the net. In the four games, he finished with five shots on the net, 14 penalty minutes and broke even on plus/minus. Aamodt never hesitated to go to the corners for the puck and had a brilliant play with Ondrej Pavel that almost resulted in a goal. To be honest, if a forward is out, keep Aamodt in the lineup as a winger.
Ondrej Pavel makes a beautiful pass across the slot to Wyatt Aamodt (playing as a forward) but Askarov is able to get over in time. #Avs #GoAvsGo #EaglesCountry @TheRinkColorado pic.twitter.com/Cbm5NMtA5a
— Brennan Vogt (@brennan_vogt) January 7, 2024
— The power play is back to its old ways. The Eagles failed to convert on the power play the entire series against Milwaukee in six chances. Colorado only converted on two out of 14 chances in the four games on the entire road trip. This adds up to a 14.2 percent success rate on the road trip. Not to say that the chances are not there, the Eagles are just not finishing.
— The best scoring chance other than Aamodt’s missed shot came from Jack Ahcan. He snapped a shot right over Askarov into the corner of the net, but the goal was immediately waved off. This could have formed some momentum for the Eagles, but there was not even a review of the shot.
Jack Ahcan looks like he gets a shot through but the goal is immediately waived off. #Avs #GoAvsGo #EaglesCountry @TheRinkColorado pic.twitter.com/O5BBDslZVA
— Brennan Vogt (@brennan_vogt) January 7, 2024
— For the third game in a row, Riley Tufte has failed to register a point. He has only one goal and one assist in the last eight games for the Eagles. The offense has been struggling with him not being able to produce lately, even though he still leads the team in points.
Conclusion
The Eagles walk away from the road trip with a 2–1–1 record and five out of eight points. Until tonight, the team’s chemistry was noticeable, but then everything went wrong. The bright side is that players are getting healthy. Jean-Luc Foudy traveled on his first road trip all year. Chris Wagner is making progress towards playing after an offseason injury as well. Justus Annunen showed a lot of confidence in the net until tonight, but some goals were not his doing. The Eagles will next be in action on January 12 against the Coachella Valley Firebirds in Loveland.