The Norfolk Admirals open the season on the road Friday night against the Savannah Ghost Pirates and then travel Saturday to face the South Carolina Stingrays, the ECHL regular-seasonchampions.
A week from Friday, the Admirals return to play the Worcester Railers in their home opener at Scope. The teams will play again on Oct. 25.
“We’re excited now to get down to the opening weekend and we’re going to have two rough, tough opponents on the road,” Admirals coach Jeff Carr said. “You’ve got to make a few adjustments. It’s a different team you’re playing, but it’s so early in the year the scouting reports aren’t super advantageous. The tough part is we’re playing in Savannah’s first home game of the year at their rink — they’ve got their crowd behind them and used to their ice. And then travel because the next night is another home opener with a lively crowd against the team that was the best in the league in the regular season. Back-to-back, sell-out crowd nights on the road.
“The advantage for us is we can tune out all the noise. We don’t have the distractions of home, so we get to go into hostile environments. Play simple, play together, and then the following night, we’ve already played a game and had that game-action continuity vs. South Carolina, who hasn’t played that game yet.”
Schedule: The full schedule is available here: https://norfolkadmirals.com/#schedule
Tickets: They start at $31.98 for the season opener and are available online and at the Scope box office. There are $5 discounts for teachers, active duty military personnel and veterans, first responders and college students. Family four-packs of tickets are available on select game nights and packages start at $50.
Last season: The Admirals finished 40-25-6-1, third in the North Division of the ECHL and qualified for the Kelly Cup playoffs for the second consecutive year. They fell 4-2 to the Trois-Rivières Lions in the North Division finals — the second round of the playoffs. Norfolk registered 251 goals and allowed 210 with a 19.7 power-play percentage and an 82.0 penalty-kill percentage.
Who’s in charge: Carr is back for his third full season as Admirals head coach and general manager. He has guided the team to a 101-85-10-2 record since he took over in November 2022. He previously was head coach of the Knoxville Ice Bears in the SPHL for five seasons, where he compiled a 144-90-24 record and was named the 2021-22 Coach of the Year.
“I think you reverse-engineer the last two playoff series,” Carr said of pushing the Admirals further. “You try to just get in the playoffs to have a chance and learn from both reasons why we didn’t get all the way to the finals.
“But that’s a long way away. You’ve got to take one step at a time. There’s a lot of steps and a lot of subseasons in a year that you have to complete and learn and grow to give yourself the best chance.”
Parent club: The Norfolk Admirals extended their affiliation agreement with the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets and their American Hockey League affiliate Manitoba Moose for a third straight season.
“The first year, we had a one-year (contract) with an option of a second,” Carr said. “We both accepted (the option) and going into this season it was the same thing. They’re usually one-year contracts, but with us, we try to decide early in the spring on what direction we’re moving forward the following year.”
Who’s back: Forwards Brandon Osmundson, Jack O’Leary, Jace Isley and Tanner Andrew and defensemen Connor Fedorek and Brehdan Engum are back for the Admirals after spending the preseason camp with the Manitoba Moose.
“It’s huge. They get thrown in an environment with a ton of other really good prospects,” Carr said. “They maybe learn a new couple things in the system and from their coaches and some fine detail on multiple different levels, whether it’s strength and conditioning, their development or just pure competitiveness. I think it’s always advantageous if they get that opportunity because they get a tone-setter on where they stack up against other top prospects in the country.
“And if they get assigned to us and don’t make it, then they come back pretty hungry to get back up to that level.”
Osmundson set career-highs last season with 18 goals, 37 points, 36 penalty minutes and a +23 rating.
O’Leary appeared in six regular-season games and nine playoff contests, notching his first professional goal in the North Division semifinals against the Wheeling Nailers.
Isley signed with the Admirals on July 31 after spending the previous two seasons between Utica and Hershey in the AHL. In 96 ECHL games between Adirondack and South Carolina, he registered 36 points.
Andrew signed a tryout deal with the Admirals. He played in nine games and recorded four assists and signed a standard player contract in August.
Fedorek had 18 points in 67 regular-season games for the Admirals last season and led the team with 59 penalty minutes.
Engum signed his first professional contract with the Admirals in early September after five seasons in the collegiate ranks. During his senior season, he suited up in 30 games for Boston University and finished with a +7 rating and 62 blocked shots.
Carr added that fifth-year defensemen Carson Musser is slated to return in about a month following an injury. Last season, Musser posted career-highs with 58 games, 23 assists and 29 points. He led the team with 78 blocked shots. Musser was named team captain at the start of last season after serving as an assistant captain in 2023-24 and was also invited to Manitoba’s training camp.
Who’s new: Carr said the Admirals focused efforts on strengthening the back end of the ice early.
“We were thin on days one and two of training camp, and then after the Blue-Gold game, we were pretty active in picking up Eric Parker on a trade from Idaho,” Carr said.
Parker is a graduate of Bowling Green University. In 114 games over four years, he recorded four goals and 32 assists for 36 points.
Another trade brought in two defensemen from the Greenville Swamp Rabbits.
“We got an offensive defenseman in Dustin Geregach and then David Drake, who’s a mainstay steady defenseman — one of the top shutdown defensemen in the ECHL,” Carr said. “We feel like our back half’s a lot better.”
Drake spent the previous three seasons with the Wheeling Nailers, playing in 242 games and posting 60 points with a +37 rating, while Geregach is entering his first full professional season after amassing 13 points in 18 games after signing with Greenville late in the season.
Two goalkeepers have been assigned to the Admirals from parent club Manitoba: Isaac Poulter and Alex Worthington.
Poulter spent the previous three seasons in the New Jersey Devils organization, playing for their AHL affiliate, the Utica Comets, and their ECHL affiliate, the Adirondack Thunder. He spent all of last season in Utica, playing in 36 games and posting a 16-13-7 record.
His name might be familiar to players and fans alike as two years ago, Poulter was the goalie for the Thunder in three wins in an eventual North Division Finals-clinching series over Norfolk, including a franchise record 54-save performance in a 2-1 overtime victory over the Admirals. In 28 regular-season starts in the ECHL, Poulter has gone 15-8-2 with a 2.82 GAA.
Worthington, 20, joins the Admirals after signing a two-year contract with the Moose in the summer. The Saskatchewan native participated in the 2025 Prospect Showdown with the Jets. He played in 42 games with the Edmonton Oil Kings of Canada’s Western Hockey League last season, posting a 22-18-2 record with a 2.99 goals-against-average.
Forward Jaydon Dureau also joins from the Moose. He played his first three seasons in the Tampa Bay Lightning organization with Orlando (ECHL) and Syracuse (AHL). In 103 ECHL games, Dureau registered 29 goals and 44 assists.
Late home-ice advantage: In a stark contrast from the past two seasons, the Admirals will be at Scope more late in the season — playing 23 of their 36 home games after New Year’s Day. They played 17 of their first 26 games — a third of the schedule — at home before Christmas Day in the ‘24-25 season and 16 of 26 the year prior.
Winning Wednesdays: The Admirals have an attendance promotion for Wednesday home games — if the Admirals win, ticket purchasers will receive a free ticket to the following Wednesday game. Original tickets must be purchased from the GoFevo.com site. For more information, go to https://www.gofevo.com/group/Winningwednesdays?ref=WEB.
Promotional nights: Some of the themed home games at Scope include Military Appreciation Nights on Nov. 14 and Jan. 24, Teddy Bear Toss on Dec. 6 (all donated bears thrown on the ice will be donated to children at local hospitals), Mascot Mania on Jan. 3 (Salty Dog and all his mascot friends from Hampton Roads take over the rink), Women in Sports Night on Feb. 14 (the Admirals celebrate women athletes and behind-the-scenes staff), Guns N’ Hoses Night on March 7 (the Norfolk Police and Fire-Rescue Departments square off on the ice preceding the Admirals game) and Fan Appreciation Night on April 4 (the team celebrates the fans’ support during the final home game of the regular season).
The entire promotional schedule can be found here:
https://norfolkadmirals.com/news/2025/08/news-admirals-announce-2025-26-promotional-schedule.
