Loss knocks slumping Thunder out of playoffs

Matt O'Brien

Friday, April 9, 1999 | 10:02 a.m.

You can stop staying up late, waiting for Milwaukee Admirals results on the ticker.

Go ahead and spend that deposit you put down on IHL playoff tickets. The mathematical elimination formulas not even physicist Stephen Hawking could figure out? Don't even sweat.

It's finally official. The Las Vegas Thunder has been eliminated from the IHL playoffs.

After it stumbled out of the blocks (9-25-5 in first 39 games), most devotees of the club thought it would've happened sooner. But the Thunder found life after the all-star break (25-10-1 over last 36 games) and had a chance -- albeit a slim one -- to steal a spot in the postseason.

Needing to win the remaining seven games on its schedule, and Milwaukee to drop its final six, Las Vegas ended all suspense Thursday night at the Thomas & Mack Center, dropping a 4-1 decision to Northeast Division champ Detroit.

The loss, the Thunder's fourth in its last five games, dropped Las Vegas to 34-36-6. Detroit improved to 47-19-10.

"We missed our veteran defensive players," said Thunder coach Bob Bourne, alluding to the absence of Brad Miller (back) and David Shaw (personal problems). "But our young players are good enough to fill in. There are really no excuses. It was just a poor team effort tonight."

Leading 1-0 after the first 20 minutes, Las Vegas got ambushed in the second frame. Detroit outshot the Thunder 16-6 and scored all four of its goals in the period, the last one coming at 19:55 on a wrister from Steve Walker, who was set up beautifully by Mike Maurice.

Maurice, Keith Aldridge and Brian Felsner accounted for the remaining Viper goals. Ex-Thunder center Stefan Ustorf contributed two assists.

The lone Las Vegas goal came at 19:39 of the first off the stick of center Lee Jinman.