Allen Beats Missouri in OT, Game Recap, Martinson's Comments, Video Highlights & More

If the moniker of "comeback kids" or "cardiac kids" ever fit it would be recently with the Allen Americans. For the third time in their last four games the Allen Americans overcame a two goal deficit late in the third period to send a game to overtime. Last night the victim was Missouri who seemingly had the game in hand when they took a 3-1 lead at the 7:55 mark of the third period. It was at that point the two guys you would expect to take over did exactly that. One of coach Martinson's frequent quotes is when it comes to crunch time "your best players have to be your best players"  which Gary Steffes and Chad Costello proved once again last night. Steffes had a pure hat trick (the official ECHL box score is incorrect) with Costello assisting on all three goals. Gary scored a power play goal at the 11:53 mark, the tying goal at 17:15 of the third period and won the game at 2:12 of the overtime period.

Allen improved their record against Missouri to 8-0 overall and 4-0 at the Independence Events Center. It was the last regular season game for these teams in Missouri and it had to be a bitter pill to swallow. An indication of how disappointing the loss was to Missouri coach Richard Matvichuk is according to a story written by Bill Althus who covers the Mavericks, "Matvichuk chose not to talk with the media following Friday night's loss." Missouri will have one more opportunity to get a win against Allen when they meet for the ninth and final time this season at the Allen Event Center on March 27.



STAVE MARTINSON'S POST GAME COMMENTS

- Another great comeback tonight after getting behind 3-1 in the third period and it was nice to get that overtime goal for the victory.

- We were close to having the game turn into a donnybrook after Ryley Grantham cross checked Chad Costello in the head.

- The roughing call Grantham took for clipping the bench midway through the third period was the critical turning point for us. We scored on that power play and were off to the races. The tying goal was technically not a power play goal as we scored just as the penalty expired but we made them pay for the late penalties they took as that was the difference in the game.

- I am so proud of Gary Steffes and Chad Costello. Gary leads the league in goals by a wide margin and will end up doubling the most goals he has ever scored as a pro. Costello is undoubtedly the comeback player of the year leading the ECHL scoring race by 25 points. He has to be very happy with rebounding to be the top player in the league again. Gary and Chad are having great years and what makes it special for me is they committed to playing in Allen before they knew we were moving to the ECHL.

- With so many players up in the AHL we had lots of guys getting more ice time. I thought Jesse Messier had a strong two way game tonight.

- I thought JP Anderson had a strong game in goal. We were not good defending on a couple of the Missouri goals.


OTHER COMMENTS

- I have said this before but it bears repeating that the Missouri Maverick do an outstanding job in putting out game highlights. It is great quality video which includes the highlights with replays. And they get this out very quickly after the game. This is a "best practice" the other teams in the Central Division could learn from. Here are the video highlights from last night courtesy of the Missouri Mavericks.

- With his hat trick last night Gary Steffes now has 36 goals which leads the ECHL by nine. He is still on pace to get 50 goals. Gary is also now the Allen Americans all time single season record holder for goals scored having surpassed Nino Musitelli and Bruce Graham who set the record of 34 goals in the 2010-2011 season.

- With the win over Missouri, Allen extended their lead in the Central Division standings to 20 points with 22 games remaining in the regular season as second place Quad City and third place Wichita both lost. Once again only four points separates second place Quad City from fifth place Tulsa.

- It was a quiet night for Allen players recently loaned to the ECHL. Ian Schultz and the Iowa Wild had the night off, Spencer Asuchak was a healthy scratch for Providence as they beat Lehigh Valley 5-1 and Greger Hanson was a healthy scratch for Oklahoma City as the beat Adirondack 4-3 in overtime. The one bright spot was Aaron Dell who was once again in goal for Worcester as they beat Norfolk 5-2. Aaron is now 5-1-1 since being called up and for the twelve games he has played for Worcester this year his GAA is 1.97 and save percentage is .926. Looks like Aaron might be in Worcester for the remainder of the season.



DID YOU KNOW: The Allen Americans are 8-0 against the Missouri Mavericks this year in large part because of outstanding special teams play on the penalty kill. The Mavericks finally scored a power play goal last night which was the first one in eight games. Missouri is now 1-40 (2.5%) against the Allen penalty kill unit this year.