Milwaukee Admirals sign language night special for Wiesblatt family
The Milwaukee Admirals’ sign language theme night is especially meaningful for Oasiz Wiesblatt, whose parents are both deaf. The date isn’t set yet.
Karl Taylor is entering his seventh season as the head coach of the Milwaukee Admirals.He is the winningest coach in the team’s American Hockey League history.He was a finalist for the Nashville Predators head coaching job in 2023.
Karl Taylor enters his seventh season as head coach of the Milwaukee Admirals as the club’s all-time victory leader in its American Hockey League era.
That’s a whole lot of good news mixed with a little bad.
He came to Milwaukee to win, of course, but like so many of the players who have walked through the locker room at UWM Panther Arena he also hoped to use the opportunity as a springboard to hockey’s highest level, the NHL.
And still, Taylor waits.
“Not antsy at all,” Taylor said as the Admirals opened training camp ahead of their first exhibition game Oct. 3 at home against the Rockford IceHogs.
“I’ve got a great job here. Great ownership, great management. And what we do here is very enjoyable. We’ve had a lot of great runs here.
“Do I want an opportunity in NHL? Yeah, sure, we all do. Players do, I do. Everyone does. I’m not antsy at all.”
Taylor, 54, has taken the Admirals to the Calder Cup playoffs five times and won the AHL regular season title in 2020, when the postseason was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In April he became the Admirals’ winningest AHL coach (since 2001), although he’s behind “Mr. Admiral” Phil Wittliff overall. Taylor’s record of 244 wins, 133 losses, 31 overtime losses and 12 shootout losses includes the franchise’s second-longest winning streak (19 games in January and February 2024).
Before coming to Milwaukee, Taylor spent four seasons as an assistant with the Texas Stars. He’d previously had stints as an assistant in Portland (WHL), Chicago (AHL) and before that as an ECHL head coach in Reading, Pennsylvania, and Ontario, California.
Upon his arrival in Milwaukee for the 2018-19 season, Taylor stressed the importance of family and said he’d like to stay put until his children – then 12 and 13 – completed school.
“Empty nester … so that has changed,” Taylor said. “And so if something comes up, then I won’t have to move my kids again.”
Taylor was a finalist to replace John Hynes with the Admirals’ NHL parent Nashville Predators in 2023 and presumably could have been in play if Hynes’ replacement, Andrew Brunette, had not been retained after either of his two seasons. The Predators went 30-44-8 last season, their worst record in more than a decade, and missed the playoffs.
What other NHL openings Taylor might have been a candidate to fill aren’t clear.
One thing Taylor’s résumé lacks is NHL experience, save for the role he plays in Predators training camps and his 2-0 record filling in when Hynes and his staff contracted COVID in December 2021.
Over the summer, they hired former Chicago Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson as an assistant, which could be an obstacle to Taylor reaching the NHL via Nashville.
“I love my job here,” he said. “We’re treated very well through (Nashville) management, but also with Harris (Turer, Admirals owner) and Jon (Greenberg, Admirals president) in the front office. They take care of us very well.
“If I’m going to be coaching at this level, this is a great place to play. It’s a privilege, and I don’t look down on that at all.”
There’s a certain irony to Taylor’s position in that part of his job is to help young players stay grounded as their NHL prospects brighten or fade and he faces a similar task with himself.
“It’s hard to listen to your coach words,” he agreed with a chuckle.
“So, yeah, you do have to, because we all go through it in life, right? We’re all humans, and we have good days, we have bad days, there’s days where we’re excited, days where you’re disappointed. … But you learn through time that if you’re a steady ship and you’re consistent, typically things are going to work out.”