Over the course of the weekend, the Norfolk Admirals were successful in shutting out the Maine Mariners in both games. On the second night of the Chesapeake ‘City Series’ weekend, the Admirals were victorious with a score of 7-3, with a record crowd in attendance.
The Admirals’ triumph was due in part to the exceptional performance of Oskari Salminen, who returned to the cage. Salminen made 19 saves out of 22 shots in the win.
At the beginning of the game, both teams played with high intensity without any stoppages until the seven-minute mark in the period. The score remained 0-0 until past the halfway point of the period when Mathieu Roy, the captain, deflected the shot from Mark Liwiski into the back of the net for his 14th goal of the year. Two minutes later, Kamerin Nault extended the Admirals’ lead to 2-0 by putting away the back-door shot from Stepan Timofeyev’s pass.
Mark Liwiski’s fight with a Mariner brought the crowd at Norfolk Scope to their feet. Salminen made three grade-A saves to keep the Mariners off of the board. Following the fight, the Admirals kept up the offensive pressure. With only 35 seconds left in the period, Gehrett Sargis intercepted a Mariner skater and scored his fourth goal of the season with a short-handed goal, making it 3-0 going into the intermission.
During the second period of the game, the Norfolk Admirals scored numerous goals that helped them maintain a huge lead against Maine. About five minutes into the period, Darick Louis-Jean was able to extend Norfolk’s lead by scoring a goal from the slot area. This goal was made possible by Brandon Osmundson’s pass from behind the net. With this goal, the Admirals took a 4-0 lead and held onto it for a while.
Later in the period, the Admirals’ dominance continued as they scored three more goals to take their lead to an impressive 7-0. Liwiski scored his 8th goal of the season on a breakaway to make it 5-0. Louis-Jean then scored his second goal of the night, extending the lead to six goals. Carson Musser also got on the board with a goal, his sixth of the season, to make it 7-0 in favor of the Admirals.
In the last few seconds of the period, Maine was able to prevent Salminen from getting a shutout by scoring a goal, which was scored by Wyllum Deveaux. As the third period commenced, all the momentum was on the Admirals’ side as they looked to close out decisively.
During the last 20 minutes of the game, the Admirals continued to hinder the Mariners’ attack by displaying solid neutral-zone aggression and preventing Maine from taking any shots on goal. The score remained the same until the latter part of the game when Maine managed to score two goals, reducing the Norfolk deficit to 7-3. However, Norfolk emerged victorious once again, extending their winning streak to five games and securing seven consecutive wins in front of the Scope crowd.
Following the win, Norfolk’s record improved to 32-19-3-1 on the year, and the team remained in second place in the ECHL North Division with 68 points.
