Admirals finish under .500, stumble into playoffs after loss to Wolves

The final score was ugly, but the real question is sharper: did Milwaukee’s 5-1 loss to Chicago expose a playoff problem, or just a team running on fumes at the end of a long regular season? The Admirals did qualify for the Calder Cup Playoffs, yet they also closed at 32-33-4-3, their first sub-.500 finish since the franchise’s inaugural 2001-02 AHL season.

Chicago made the answer look at least partly ominous. The Wolves built a 4-0 lead before Isaac Ratcliffe finally got Milwaukee on the board at 15:40 of the second period, ending a scoring drought that had reached 183:47. That was Milwaukee’s longest dry spell of the season, worse than the previous high-water mark of 161:23 from Jan. 16 to Jan. 23. Ratcliffe’s goal, his ninth of the year, only briefly slowed Chicago before the Wolves answered again and kept the game out of reach.

That is where the warning sign lives. A playoff team can live with a one-night clunker, especially with the postseason already secured under the AHL’s top-five Central Division format. What Milwaukee cannot afford is a repeat of the offensive dead zone that showed up against a divisional opponent it saw all season. Chicago finished the season series 8-1-2-1 and ended the regular season on a four-game winning streak, so the Wolves were not exactly offering Milwaukee a soft landing.

Still, the bigger story around the Admirals is not just the finish line, but how they got there. Milwaukee leaned on 16 different rookies during the 2025-26 campaign, a reminder that this roster spent much of the year balancing development with results. That makes the loss look less like a death knell and more like a final stress test before the meaningful games begin.

Now the focus shifts to Manitoba, and the matchup is familiar. Milwaukee and the Moose met in the Calder Cup Playoffs for the third time in five years, with all three games of the best-of-three first-round series set for Winnipeg. Game 1 was scheduled for April 22, Game 2 for April 24, and, if needed, Game 3 for April 26. The Admirals said they beat Manitoba four times down the stretch, including a 7-0 road win in Winnipeg on April 8, so the postseason door opened with a little proof that Milwaukee can still handle this opponent. The question is whether the offense that went silent in Chicago shows up when the pressure actually starts.