Despite missing out on the Brabham Cup by one point it was an amazing first season in the ECHL for the Allen Americans and finishing second in points assures home ice advantage all they way to the finals. If Allen should make it to the Kelly Cup finals and face any team other than Toledo they will have home ice in the finals as well. Job well done by the Americans.
The task at hand however, is the first round of the playoffs and as they say in sports once you make the playoffs anything can happen. It seems like in hockey more than many other sports, lower seeds take out higher seeds frequently. The Americans will be totally focused on the Tulsa Oilers starting at practice today as they prepare for their first playoff game tomorrow. Because of scheduling conflicts with the Allen Event Center (AEC) the ECHL approved an early start to the playoffs for this series. Of the eight first round playoff series only Allen vs Tulsa starts on Tuesday (4/14). Of the other seven series one starts on Wednesday, two on Thursday and four start on Friday.
Steve Martinson will have a busy day as in addition to practice this morning (10:00 a.m.) he has to submit the playoff roster to the league office by 2:00 p.m. Allen time. It is always difficult making the final decision to leave someone off the playoff roster. Here is my take:
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The roster can have a maximum of 23 players with 19
on the active roster and up to four reserves.
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Unlike the CHL amateurs take up a roster spot so they
are not a “bonus”
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Goalies also take up a roster spot so if you put an extra
goalie on the roster it costs one of the 23 spots. Based on recent playing time
you would expect Riley Gill and Joel Rumpel to be the goalies and J.P. Anderson
would head back to Worcester.
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The ECHL rule allows you to have slots for players in
the AHL that are qualified to play without naming the players. The Americans
have five players currently in the AHL (Ian Schultz, Gary Steffes, Aaron Dell,
Rylan Schwartz, Tanner Eberle) that are qualified to play for Allen in the
playoffs. Coach Martinson has
decided to save four slots on the roster for these players but doesn’t have to decide
which players to add until they become available by their AHL teams. This
provides a lot more flexibility as some of these players may never become
available to Allen because their team makes a deep run in the AHL playoffs.
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Given the fact that most if not all of the five players
currently in the AHL will not be back for the start of the first round against
Tulsa it will be difficult for coach Martinson to put injured players that are
not available for the first round on the playoff roster. Tyler Ludwig, Brian McMillin, Mike DiPaolo, and Jesse Messier all fall in this category. With four forwards in the AHL and no defensemen it is most likely that Tyler would be the injured player on the roster even if he misses the first round as expected.
- There may be some surprises but when the playoff roster is released this afternoon my prediction would be that all of the players that are currently playing will be on the roster, just one injured player will make it and there will only be 19 names listed with four slots reserved for the players currently in the AHL. If any of the AHL players are being sent to Allen today their name will be on the roster and the four slots will be reduced.
OTHER COMMENTS
- With the regular season now completed wanted to once again recognized those players that were lunch pail guys for the Americans. To play in every game is a real benefit to the team and is a great accomplishment. Congrats to the 2014-2015 Allen American's Ironmen, Chad Costello, Aaron Gens and Jamie Schaafsma.
- Here is a list of offensive categories where an Allen player finished first in the ECHL. An impressive list indeed:
Points - Chad Costello (125)
Goals - Gary Steffes (44)
Assists - Chad Costello (84)
Power Play Goals - Gary Steffes (18)
Power Play Assists - Chad Costello (35)
Shorthanded Goals - Greger Hanson (5)
Game Winning Goals - Greger Hanson (11)
Insurance Goals - Gary Steffes (8)
Points Defensemen - Aaron Gens (56)
Goals Defensemen - Tyler Ludwig (16)
Assists Defensemen - Aaron Gens (48)
Power Play Assists Defensemen - Aaron Gens (22)
Goalie Wins - Riley Gill (33)
- More ECHL post season awards will be announced today or as some refer to it as the Chad Costello daily award announcement. Chad will be in the headlines again as one of the awards announced today is the CCM leading scorer award. He will probably miss out tomorrow when the coach of the year is announced but who knows, he might get some votes for that as well.
- With so many positives this season one disappointment has been the attendance which hopefully will improve during the playoffs as this team certainly deserves the support. With back to back championships and a new league (ECHL) to market it is hard to believe the attendance was the lowest in five years at just 4096 per game.
DID YOU KNOW: Jamie Schaafsma has been an Allen American's Ironman twice playing in all games in 2014-2015 and 2012-2013. Including playoffs Jamie has missed just five games in three years playing in 235 of 240 games.
Attendance could be increased if they would advertise. My son plays ice hockey out of Farmers Branch and a lot of the other players go to the Stars games. We tell them about the Allen Americans and most have never heard of them! I never hear an advertisement or see a billboard for the Allen Americans. I don't see any information about them in Hockey Giant or Players Bench (both hockey stores in the metroplex). Ownership needs to advertise. I tell everyone how good the seats are, only 26 rows, everyone has a good seat. Parking is FREE, food is less than a Stars game. There are 6.5 million people in the metro plex and most don't know the Allen Americans exist, I put that squarely on the ownership.
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