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| Darryl Bootland with with two goals was the games #1 star |
The Allen Americans beat an improved Tulsa Oilers team last night 3-1 before a crowd of 3342 at the Allen Event Center. Allen High School playoff football and the cold wet weather probably helped hold the crowd numbers down some. Wearing specialty jerseys for "Americans Fight Alzheimers" night Allen was led on offense by Darryl Bootland with two goals and the #1 star of the game, Alex Lavoie with two assists and the #2 star and Phil Fox with a goal and the #3 star. Neither goalie (David Brown or Shane Madolora) cracked the three star selections but for my money both of them could have easily been on the list. I thought the goalie play was outstanding at both ends of the rink.
- Tulsa came into the game last night 7-1 in their last eight games and have been out shooting opponents in most games. Allen out shot the Oilers 42-32 and improved their record against Tulsa to 5-1 on the season.
- Special teams play followed an all too familiar pattern of late with a rock solid penalty kill (0-6) and an anemic power play (0-5). The power play has not scored in the last three games going 0-16.
- Special teams should favor the Americans against Tulsa as the Oilers rank 9th in the league on the penalty kill (78.08%) while the Americans lead the league at 90.80%. The difference in the power play is not as big with Tulsa 7th in the CHL at 13.70% while Allen is 4th at 18.07%.
- If you noticed the power play last night the Americans had lots of opportunities to score and controlled the puck in the offensive zone for longs periods of time but couldn't get the puck in the net. If the power play continues as it did last night the goals will come.
- One of the most interesting stats on the team right now is plus/minus. Tyler Ludwig leads the team with a +8. No other player is higher than +3 and there are 10 players at zero or below. As a team the Americans are +5.
STEVE MARTINSON POST GAME COMMENTS:
"I liked the play of David Brown as he did a great job in goal. We had a lot of puck possession and lots of shots. Madolora was also great in goal. We are trying to do a couple of things a little different on the power play and while we didn't score we had the puck in the offensive zone a lot. It wasn't a real physical game as Tulsa doesn't play a real physical game and when you have lots of puck possession as we did and 42 shots on goal you are not going to have as much physical play. I liked the play of Greger Hanson for his first game. He takes the puck to the net and he did some things I saw him do against us last year. He made a great pass to Bootland on the third goal. You have to remember Hanson has only played four games this year and he wasn't playing a lot of minutes in those four games so he will only get better."
OTHER COMMENTS:
- Allen made up no ground in the standings as the top four teams (Rapid City, Allen, Missouri, & Denver) all won last night. The other team that won last night was Arizona who has now won four straight games. The win last night was the first of the year at home for the Sundogs.
- Wichita is now the only team in the league that has not won at home as their home record is 0-6-2. The Thunder will have another chance to get that first home win again tonight but it won't be easy as they take on the only remaining team that has not lost on the road, Rapid City. The Rush road record is 6-0-0.
- The Allen Americans Fan Club had a silent auction last night for some of the Christmas tree ornaments the players made at a recent party. While most went for $15 - $25 the big winner was the ornament made by Kale Kerbashian which went for $100. Wow! Don't worry if you missed out as they only auctioned off half of the ornaments last night. Stop by the fan club table tonight as the other half of the ornaments will be auctioned tonight.
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| Alex Lavoie had two assists wearing the "Americans Fight Alzheimers" jersey - photo by chlphotos.com |
- Congrats to the Allen Americans, Kimberly Munson and all of the other sponsors and people involved in a great "Americans Fight Alzheimers" promotion. A big part of the fund raising came from the specialty jersey auction after the game. I don't know the exact figures but the jersey auction brought in close to $15,000. I am continually impressed by the seemingly small group of fans that support the specialty jersey auctions. They really deserve everyone's thanks. For those interested in the details the jerseys that brought in the most money were Alex Lavoie at $1100, Jarret Lukin & Mike Berube at $1000, and Darryl Bootland at $850. And for those of you wondering what is the least amount you need to spend to get a jersey, last night it was $400.
- If you haven't noticed, the Team Store recently populated their web site with many of the items that are in the store so you can now buy on line. To access the team store go to the Allen Americans web site (allenamericans.com) and click on the "Team Store" tab on the top of the page.
- Attendance figures around the league last night varied from 5488 in Missouri to 1386 in Denver. These numbers are close to season long numbers where Missouri leads the league with an average attendance of 5712 and Denver is last with an average of 1379.
DID YOU KNOW: With an assist last night Missouri Mavericks forward Sebastien Thinel moved to third place all time for assists in the CHL. Thinel's 549 assists trail only #1 Doug Lawrence (1992-2002) with 684 and #2 Travis Clayton (1997-2011) with 601.
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