July 29 - Milwaukee signs Mike Bartlett (RW) to an AHL contract.
July 21 - Milwaukee signs Scott Lehman (D) to an AHL contract.
July 16 - Nashville signs Jamie Lundmark (C) to a one-year two-way contract.
July 9 - Nashville signs Brett Palin (D) to a one-year two-way contract.
July 6 - Milwaukee re-signs Chris Mueller (RW) to a one-year AHL contract.
July 6 - Milwaukee re-signs Mark Van Guilder (C) to a one-year AHL contract.
July 1 - Nashville re-signs Teemu Laakso (D) to a one-year two-way contract.
July 1 - Nashville signs former Admiral Jonas Andersson (LW) to a one-year one-way contract.
June 28 - Nashville re-signs Andreas Thuresson (RW) to a one-year two-way contract.
June 19 - Nashville acquires Matt Halischuk (RW) from New Jersey/Lowell in a trade involving Jason Arnott.
June 15 - Nashville signs 2006 draft pick Blake Geoffrion (C) to a two-year entry-level contract.
May 28 - Nashville signs 2008 draft pick Roman Josi (D) to a three-year entry-level contract.
May 28 - Nashville signs 2007 draft pick Atte Engren (G) to a two-year entry-level contract.
May 26 - Nashville signs 2008 draft pick Anders Lindbäck (G) to a two-year entry-level contract.
May 17 - Nashville signs former Admiral Kelsey Wilson (LW) to a one-year two-way contract.
May 12 - Nashville signs 2008 draft pick Jani Lajunen (C) to a three-year entry-level contract.
April 20 - Nashville signs free agent Linus Klasen (LW) to a one-year contract.
April 15 - Nashville signs 2009 draft pick Gabriel Bourque (LW) to a three-year entry-level contract.
April 2 - Nashville signs 2006 draft pick Ryan Flynn (RW) to a two-year entry-level contract.
March 24 - Nashville signs 2007 draft pick Ryan Thang (LW) to a two-year contract.

Signed, but will play junior hockey in 2010-11
April 15 - Nashville signs 2009 draft pick Charles-Olivier Roussel (D) to a three-year entry-level contract.
April 14 - Nashville signs 2009 draft pick Michael Latta (C) to a three-year entry-level contract.
October 19 (2009) - Nashville signs 2009 draft pick Ryan Ellis (D) to a three-year entry-level contract. Ellis missed the AHL age eligibility by three days.

Restricted free agents
Mark Dekanich, Cody Franson, Ryan Maki, Mike Santorelli
Nashville has made offers to Dekanich, Franson, and Santorelli. I have heard nothing if they will consider re-signing Maki.

Unrestricted free agents
Ben Guite, Peter Olvecky, Dave Scatchard
These players were not given qualifying offers and are doubtful to be re-signed.

Other players, such as Wacey Rabbit, Mark Matheson, and Scott Ford were under one-year AHL contracts. The Admirals generally wait until they have a clear idea on the prospects coming from Nashville before signing players to AHL deals.

Leaving the team
Hugh Jessiman signs with the Chicago Blackhawks (Rockford)
James Sixsmith signs with Germany's Kölner Haie
Reid Cashman signs with Austria's EHC Black Wings Linz
Nolan Yonkman signs with the Phoenix Coyotes (San Antonio)
Triston Grant signs with the Florida Panthers (Rochester)
Robert Dietrich signs with Germany's Adler Mannheim

We will know much more once training camp rolls around in September.

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July 13 - The AHL released the schedule matrix, which tells us how often each team will face each other. Here is a chart to show how often Milwaukee will play each opponent. The actual schedule should be released in early August.

10	8	6	4	2	0
Rockford	Grand Rapids	Houston	Abbotsford	Hamilton	Rochester
Peoria	San Antonio	Oklahoma City	Cleveland	Toronto	The entire Eastern Conference
Chicago		Texas	Manitoba

Each series features an equal number of home and away games (5/5, 4/4, 3/3, etc.)

Unfortunately, this schedule cuts down even further on us seeing some of the North Division teams. I was looking forward to seeing Claude Noel behind the Moose bench, and I enjoy seeing teams like Toronto and Hamilton, who look much like the Leafs and Habs if you squint. Those games will be special occasions on the schedule, rather than a regular treat.

I could insert my semi-annual rant about the league babying the Eastern Conference, by not forcing them to travel beyond the Eastern time zone, but I'm not in the mood to get all wound up. Besides, the league's favored children are probably pouting that they have to make a few trips to Charlotte this season, so a trip out west for each team is definitely not gonna happen anytime soon.

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June 16
The league announced the divisional alignment for the coming season. With the AHL expanding from 29 to 30 active teams, they reached their goal of having one affiliated franchise for each of the 30 NHL teams.

It appears that all of the offseason dominoes have stopped falling around the league. Here's the breakdown...

** The Edmonton Oilers placed their inactive franchise in Okalahoma City. They will be known as the Barons (fans in Cleveland are permitted to groan at this).
** The Albany River Rats were sold to the owner of the ECHL's Charlotte Checkers. (The Charlotte ECHL team was then dissolved). The team will use the Checkers name.
** The fans in Albany will still have a team to cheer for, as the Lowell Devils were moved to the capital city of New York. They will still be known as the Devils.
** Texas stays in the league after buying the suspended franchise from the Iowa Chops.

Unfortunately, the league chose to continue using unevenly sized divisions. Each conference will have an eight team and a seven team division. I was hoping they would copy the NHL layout of 6 five-team divisions (3 in each conference) and use the NHL playoff format based on conference standings rather than divisional placements.

Nope. This is what was decided...

West - The same seven teams plus Oklahoma City.
Milwaukee, Chicago, Rockford, Peoria, OKC, Texas, Houston, San Antonio
North - No change - the same seven teams.
Abbotsford, Manitoba, Grand Rapids, Cleveland, Hamilton, Toronto, Rochester
East - The same seven teams plus Charlotte.
Syracuse, Adirondack, Albany, Binghamton, Wilkes-Barre, Hershey, Norfolk, Charlotte
Atlantic - Seven teams. The same as last year minus Lowell.
Portland, Manchester, Springfield, Worcester, Providence, Hartford, Bridgeport

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Home Opener - October 9 (team to be determined).

Other confirmed dates - October 15, November 5, December 3, January 8.

The 80-game season schedule is typically released in early August after the NBA schedule is announced.

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The Bradley Center released plans for a new jumbotron which should be in place in time for the beginning of the season this fall. The old scoreboard featured about 230,000 pixels. The new one has 3.5 million. The old one had 947 square feet of surface space. The new one is 2,662 square feet.

Click here to read more about it from the Journal Sentinel.

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In order to help you get through the offseason, I've created some quizzes on sporcle.com. I'll add more throughout the summer and post them here, so check back often. Here are the first two:

Name the Milwaukee Admirals leading goal scorers
Name the cities of the AHL

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4 Milwaukee						Hershey 1
4-3	Chicago				Hershey	4-1
1 Chicago						Bridgeport 5
West	4-3	Texas		Hershey	4-0	East
2 Texas						Albany 2
4-0	Texas		4-2		Albany	4-0
3 Rockford			Hershey			W.-Barre 3
Western Conference		4-3		4-2		Eastern Conference
1 Hamilton			Texas			Worcester 1
4-2	Hamilton				Worcester	4-1
4 Manitoba						Lowell 4
North	4-2	Hamilton		Manchester	4-2	Atlantic
2 Rochester						Portland 2
4-3	Abbotsford				Manchester	4-0
3 Abbotsford						Manchester 3

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11 May 2010
Seventeen Sixteen former Admiral players and coaches are involved in the IIHF World Championship Tournament currently being held in Germany (Cologne, Mannheim, and Gelsenkirchen) from May 7-23.

This annual tournament features 16 countries with many of the best players in the world. Unfortunately, many NHL players are absent due to being in the playoffs or wanting to rest after just completing a long season.

The first game of the tournament was held at Gelsenkirchen's indoor soccer stadium before a world-record crowd of over 77,000 people. Germany defeated the United States 2-1 in overtime. Listed below are the 17 16 players and coaches who have been part of the Admirals organization.

Germany - Robert Dietrich, Alexander Sulzer, and John Tripp
Finland - Janne Niskala, Antti Pihlstrom, and Pekka Rinne
Canada - Chris Mason, Rich Peverley, and assistant coach Peter DeBoer
Czech Republic - Petr Hubacek and Tomas Vokoun
USA - assistant coach Todd Richards
Denmark - Kim Staal
Slovakia - Richard Lintner
Sweden - Jonas Andersson
Russia - Denis Grebeshkov (oops... I had that waste-of-a-draft-pick Denis Platonov in my head when I read this name...)
and last and certainly least...
Switzerland - Timo Helbling

If I missed a former Admiral, let me know on my Contact form, and I'll add him to the list. Personally, I'm surprised I remembered Peter Hubacek from his brief stay in Milwaukee in 2001-02. That was truly a season to forget.

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For the last 12 years, the Milwaukee Admirals have been the farm club for the NHL's Nashville Predators. Over the course of a hockey season, Milwaukee sends help to the Music City whenever Nashville is coping with injuries or when they need someone to provide a spark to their lineup.

Nashville needs our help now more than ever. Over the last few days, Nashville is suffering from intense floods that have crippled the city. As I write this, eight ten people have died, and thousands have been forced from their homes. Let's support our friends in Nashville by donating to the Nashville chapter of the Red Cross. Simply click the graphic below and follow the links to donate.

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Dear readers,

I've had this site online in one form or another since 1998. At it's best, I would provide multiple daily updates, and I would spend an insane amount of time tracking certain statistics. At it's worst, several weeks would go by without a noticeable update.

Unfortunately, 2009-10 was a season in which I had little time to provide news, opinions, or extra statistics. However, I was able to provide the best photographs I've ever taken thanks to Paul letting me use his Canon 40D for most of the season. (Check out them out by clicking on the "My Photos" and "Old Photos" links in the right-hand column).

Prior to this season, I was getting by with working about 30-35 hours each week at the local post office, which allowed me ample free time to spend on updating this site. After the post office made budget cuts last summer, I found a second job, and now I am at work about 61 hours each week (including time to commute). Trust me, I am not complaining! I'm very fortunate to have these jobs.

Like most of you, I was an avid reader of the Short Shifts blog. Between Eric and Ryan's writings and Chris' photos, they kept us informed on every nugget of Admirals news they could dig up. Last week, we were told they would be unable to keep the blog going. Hopefully, someone can step up and help fill the void of in-depth Admirals news before next season.

I want to assure you, I do not have plans to take this site down, but the future is always impossible to predict. I hope to provide more photos next season, and I will keep the historical sections of this site updated. If I get the itch to do so, I might even throw together some offseason news updates, so check back from time-to-time.

In the meantime, go out and enjoy your summer.

- Todd
Go Penguins.