- After a very rare weekend off the Americans will be back at it today getting ready for the Tulsa Oilers who they play three times this weekend with home games Friday and Saturday and on Sunday in Tulsa. Allen has already played Tulsa five times this year with a record of 4-1 but Tulsa has been playing much better hockey lately. Tulsa started the season 0-7 but in their last eight games are 7-1. This series will be a real challenge for the Americans.
- While the Allen players had the weekend off the coaches never have a day off as roster changes can happen anytime. Alex Lavoie was called up by the Oklahoma City Barons and played in his first AHL game on Saturday . He is scheduled to play in his second game for the Barons as they take on the San Antonio Rampage tomorrow night (Tuesday). Alex is wearing #24 for Oklahoma City.
- Allen signed a puck carrying/play making forward over the weekend in what I am sure is an effort to getting another scoring line going. Since I have not heard the name officially from the Americans nor seen it in any public forum my policy is to not publish the name in my blog. I will publish an article about the player later today as soon as the name is made public.
- After the three games this weekend against the Tulsa Oilers the Americans closeout the month with three games against the Sundogs in Arizona over Thanksgiving. Arizona is another team that had a rough start to the season but has played better lately. This past week the Sundogs were 3-0 winning all three games on the road.
- Today is the day I submit my "power rankings" for inclusion along with a group of bloggers/writers from around the league. The results are compiled by Minor League Hockey Report and will be published tomorrow. Won't list my complete rankings but as I look at what happened around the CHL last week here are some of my random thoughts:
Rapid City and Missouri split two games but Rapid out shot the Mavericks 92-64.
Arizona has to move up based on winning three straight games on the road.
Tulsa is on the rise again going 3-0 over the weekend.
Denver moves down based on 1-2 home record this week.
St. Charles moves down after waiving two of their best players and going 0-2.
- This is the time of year when injuries at the NHL & AHL level can lead to call ups for CHL players. While these call ups are great for the players involved if they become long term call ups it can negatively impact their CHL teams. Scott Howes and Brett Skinner are examples from last year of impact players that left the CHL for the AHL. Their circumstances were a little different because of the lockout but the impact was the same. Denver lost goalie Kieran Millan earlier this year and just had one of their top players (AJ Gale) called up and of course the Americans have just lost Alex Lavoie to a call up. Have not heard this from the Americans but would expect Alex to be back in Allen for the weekend.
DID YOU KNOW: Last year (2012-2013) the Americans had nine different players called up to the AHL for at least one game.
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