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| With two goals each the #1 star (Costello) & #2 Star (Makowski) are side by side - photo by scenebykimberly.com |
It was definitely one of those games you would have to see to believe as the Allen Americans beat the Wichita Thunder last night by a score of 6-2 unofficially but 5-2 officially before an announced crowd of 3785 at the Allen Event Center. You would have thought there was a full moon outside with all of the strange happenings on the ice. It all started before it started if you know what I mean, as the game was on a Tuesday night which is the only Tuesday night home game of the season. The assigned referee was a blast from the past, Tudor Floru, who happens to live in the area, and has refereed many infamous Allen games back in the CHL days.
- Allen scored the first goal of the game which has guaranteed victory every time it has happened this year so that streak was kept alive. The Americans are now 7-0 when scoring first. Goal scorers for Allen were Chad Costello (3&4), David Makowski (2&3) and Eric Roy (4).
- So what were the strange happenings in the game? Here is a list of some that I observed both good and bad.
- The good is after going just 1-14 (7.1%) on the power play in the first three home games, Allen was 2-5 (40%) last night and raised their home power play percentage from 7.1% to 15.8%.
- The bad was the power play gave up as many goals as they scored. Wichita's only two goals of the game came shorthanded. Didn't check the record book but would guess that is a first in team history giving up just two goals in a game and they were both shorties.
- Obvious high sticking penalties in the middle of the ice seemed to go uncalled. Here is the aftermath of one of those non calls when Dyson Stevenson took one to the face. A great picture of Allen trainer, Jaime Garcia attending to Dyson. After going off for repairs, Stevenson returned to the game. With co-captain Gary Steffes in San Jose Dyson was wearing an "A" last night. A great honor for the hard working Stevenson.
- Chad Costello had his most productive game of the season with two goals and an assist and missed out on another assist on the goal that was taken off the scoreboard because of a clock problem. The sometimes reluctant to shoot Costello had seven shots on goal. Chad is in the midst of one of his typical scoring binges having scored in seven straight games with a total of 12 points (3 goals 9 assists) in the seven games. Chad is now tied for third in scoring in the ECHL with 13 points and is just one point out of the league lead.
- The strangest call of the night belonged to the timekeeper as an apparent goal was disallowed after what was about a 10 minute discussion with the office officials. Pierro-Zabotel scored on a great pass from Chad Costello but after the fact it was determined there was a problem with the timekeeping. Not sure exactly what happened but apparently it has sometime to do with the clock not stopping after a whistle and then trying to run time after play started before starting the clock. Everyone seemed to be confused and the extremely long delay irritated players, coaches and fans.
STEVE MARTINSON'S POST GAME COMMENTS
The press conference was video taped by DJP Creative who does all of the production work for the AEC. That video should be posted by the Americans later today after it is edited. It will be inserted here when it is available so check back later today. Former Allen captain Jason Deitsch joined coach Martinson at the press conference. Jason, who is the hockey coach for Allen High School, will be on the bench for some of the home games throughout the season.
- I am not sure the officials can even do what they did on that disallowed goal. They ran the clock after the whistle so they didn't start the clock for eight seconds. I am not sure of all of the details but it was definitely frustrating.
- The only injury tonight that may be an issue was to Danny Frederico. He will have an x-ray tomorrow to see the extent of his injury. Everyone else will be okay.
- The two shorthanded goals were painful. The first one, there was pressure on our guy on the wall so the set forward on the other side has to start coming back. You have to think a bit more defensively in those situations. On the second shorthanded goal I really didn't see how it started so I will have to watch a replay of that one. but we have to do a better job of reading those plays and avoid giving up odd man rushes.
- I would like to be a little bigger than we are right now. We should get Schultz back soon and that will help. He is going to the doctor tomorrow and could be cleared to play for the weekend so he is close.
Photographer Dianne Webster sent me this great picture of Ian Schultz. She took this black and white photo when she was doing the official head shots for the team. She deliberately only fired one of her strobe lights to get this effect. Turns out Ian was sending a message on the shirt he was wearing under the jersey. If you look very closely above the Americans logo and you will see the faint outline of the superman "S" which is indicative of the hard work he has put in to recover from a serious injury. Superman will soon be back playing.
- Jason Deitsch is the head coach for the Allen High School team and also coaches youth hockey. It is really nice to have some of our ex-players get into coaching in the community. I invited Jason to be on the bench with us whenever he is available so you will see him all season.
- I am a big believer that on the power play you should try and get shots from the point and get traffic in front of the net. That should be the number one thing and then you try and do a couple of plays after you shoot the puck. The power play was better tonight but is still painful for me to watch sometimes.
- We have three games in three nights this weekend. We need to play better in Tulsa than we did the last time. It will be interesting to have Darryl Bootland back in Allen. I think he had 17 fights last year and 14 of them were at home. Since Allen is kind of like home to him maybe he will fight here.
- I am not planning on Gary Steffes being back for the games this weekend. I think the Barracuda will give him a chance to be a goal scorer for the them. It all depends on what is happening with the rosters in San Jose and the health of players. We may get a player from San Jose other than Gary. We will just have to wait and see.
- It is good to be on the road this time of year because of football in Texas and you usually have a pretty good team at the beginning of the year. We need to be good in Tulsa and then get ready for the two games with Colorado. With that said I am still looking at a couple of options.
OTHER COMMENTS
- The penalty kill continues to do play outstanding hockey. They were 0-5 last night including a couple of five on threes. Allen has not given up a power play goal in six games. The Americans have allowed just two power play goals all season (2-41) and have increased their league leading penalty kill percentage to 95.1%.
- With the win Allen now has 16 points which is tied for third in the ECHL. Florida is #1 with 18 points, followed by Missouri with 17 points. If you go by my winning percentage the top five teams are:
.889 - Adirondack
.773 - Missouri
.727 - Allen
.692 - Florida
.688 - Cincinnati
- Joel Rumpel continues his great play in goal for Allen. Other than a 6-5 OT win in Utah, Joel has not allowed more than two goals in any of the the ten games he has played this season. His record is 8-2 and his eight wins are two more than any other goalie in the ECHL.
- Eric Roy has goals in the last three games, and his seven points (4 goals 3 assists) has him in the top ten in scoring by defensemen. There is only one other rookie defenseman in the ECHL with more points than Eric.
- Another young defenseman who had a big night last night was David Makowski who led the team in shots with nine and had two goals. Makowski has five points (3 goals 2 assists) in just seven games played.
- Have to say how fortunate the Americans are to have so many great photographers willing to share their work. The three represented in the blog today go out of their way to get me pictures for the blog after every game. When the game is over their work has just begun. By the time they get home and work all of their magic and send me an email with the pictures, it is typically after 1:00 am. Last night it was 1:06 am to 1:48 am. Thanks to Kimberly Sauer, Lauren Lyssy and Dianne Webster for all of your help and wonderful pictures.
DID YOU KNOW: With all of the strange happenings in the game last night and the fact that Tudor Floru was the referee, I was reminded of all of the great memes from back in the CHL days provided by CHL Memes. Went into the archives and came across this one which seemed appropriate and reminded me of the CHL days.
Finally, on this Veterans Day would like to thank all veterans for their service to our country and a special thought for all of my Vietnam buddies from the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, of the 1st Infantry Division both here and gone. You aren't forgotten! To save you from asking that is me on the left.
- So what were the strange happenings in the game? Here is a list of some that I observed both good and bad.
- The good is after going just 1-14 (7.1%) on the power play in the first three home games, Allen was 2-5 (40%) last night and raised their home power play percentage from 7.1% to 15.8%.
- The bad was the power play gave up as many goals as they scored. Wichita's only two goals of the game came shorthanded. Didn't check the record book but would guess that is a first in team history giving up just two goals in a game and they were both shorties.
- Obvious high sticking penalties in the middle of the ice seemed to go uncalled. Here is the aftermath of one of those non calls when Dyson Stevenson took one to the face. A great picture of Allen trainer, Jaime Garcia attending to Dyson. After going off for repairs, Stevenson returned to the game. With co-captain Gary Steffes in San Jose Dyson was wearing an "A" last night. A great honor for the hard working Stevenson.
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| Photo courtesy of Lauren Lyssy |
- Chad Costello had his most productive game of the season with two goals and an assist and missed out on another assist on the goal that was taken off the scoreboard because of a clock problem. The sometimes reluctant to shoot Costello had seven shots on goal. Chad is in the midst of one of his typical scoring binges having scored in seven straight games with a total of 12 points (3 goals 9 assists) in the seven games. Chad is now tied for third in scoring in the ECHL with 13 points and is just one point out of the league lead.
- The strangest call of the night belonged to the timekeeper as an apparent goal was disallowed after what was about a 10 minute discussion with the office officials. Pierro-Zabotel scored on a great pass from Chad Costello but after the fact it was determined there was a problem with the timekeeping. Not sure exactly what happened but apparently it has sometime to do with the clock not stopping after a whistle and then trying to run time after play started before starting the clock. Everyone seemed to be confused and the extremely long delay irritated players, coaches and fans.
STEVE MARTINSON'S POST GAME COMMENTS
The press conference was video taped by DJP Creative who does all of the production work for the AEC. That video should be posted by the Americans later today after it is edited. It will be inserted here when it is available so check back later today. Former Allen captain Jason Deitsch joined coach Martinson at the press conference. Jason, who is the hockey coach for Allen High School, will be on the bench for some of the home games throughout the season.
- I am not sure the officials can even do what they did on that disallowed goal. They ran the clock after the whistle so they didn't start the clock for eight seconds. I am not sure of all of the details but it was definitely frustrating.
- The only injury tonight that may be an issue was to Danny Frederico. He will have an x-ray tomorrow to see the extent of his injury. Everyone else will be okay.
- The two shorthanded goals were painful. The first one, there was pressure on our guy on the wall so the set forward on the other side has to start coming back. You have to think a bit more defensively in those situations. On the second shorthanded goal I really didn't see how it started so I will have to watch a replay of that one. but we have to do a better job of reading those plays and avoid giving up odd man rushes.
- I would like to be a little bigger than we are right now. We should get Schultz back soon and that will help. He is going to the doctor tomorrow and could be cleared to play for the weekend so he is close.
Photographer Dianne Webster sent me this great picture of Ian Schultz. She took this black and white photo when she was doing the official head shots for the team. She deliberately only fired one of her strobe lights to get this effect. Turns out Ian was sending a message on the shirt he was wearing under the jersey. If you look very closely above the Americans logo and you will see the faint outline of the superman "S" which is indicative of the hard work he has put in to recover from a serious injury. Superman will soon be back playing.
- Jason Deitsch is the head coach for the Allen High School team and also coaches youth hockey. It is really nice to have some of our ex-players get into coaching in the community. I invited Jason to be on the bench with us whenever he is available so you will see him all season.
- I am a big believer that on the power play you should try and get shots from the point and get traffic in front of the net. That should be the number one thing and then you try and do a couple of plays after you shoot the puck. The power play was better tonight but is still painful for me to watch sometimes.
- We have three games in three nights this weekend. We need to play better in Tulsa than we did the last time. It will be interesting to have Darryl Bootland back in Allen. I think he had 17 fights last year and 14 of them were at home. Since Allen is kind of like home to him maybe he will fight here.
- I am not planning on Gary Steffes being back for the games this weekend. I think the Barracuda will give him a chance to be a goal scorer for the them. It all depends on what is happening with the rosters in San Jose and the health of players. We may get a player from San Jose other than Gary. We will just have to wait and see.
- It is good to be on the road this time of year because of football in Texas and you usually have a pretty good team at the beginning of the year. We need to be good in Tulsa and then get ready for the two games with Colorado. With that said I am still looking at a couple of options.
OTHER COMMENTS
- The penalty kill continues to do play outstanding hockey. They were 0-5 last night including a couple of five on threes. Allen has not given up a power play goal in six games. The Americans have allowed just two power play goals all season (2-41) and have increased their league leading penalty kill percentage to 95.1%.
- With the win Allen now has 16 points which is tied for third in the ECHL. Florida is #1 with 18 points, followed by Missouri with 17 points. If you go by my winning percentage the top five teams are:
.889 - Adirondack
.773 - Missouri
.727 - Allen
.692 - Florida
.688 - Cincinnati
- Joel Rumpel continues his great play in goal for Allen. Other than a 6-5 OT win in Utah, Joel has not allowed more than two goals in any of the the ten games he has played this season. His record is 8-2 and his eight wins are two more than any other goalie in the ECHL.
- Eric Roy has goals in the last three games, and his seven points (4 goals 3 assists) has him in the top ten in scoring by defensemen. There is only one other rookie defenseman in the ECHL with more points than Eric.
- Another young defenseman who had a big night last night was David Makowski who led the team in shots with nine and had two goals. Makowski has five points (3 goals 2 assists) in just seven games played.
- Have to say how fortunate the Americans are to have so many great photographers willing to share their work. The three represented in the blog today go out of their way to get me pictures for the blog after every game. When the game is over their work has just begun. By the time they get home and work all of their magic and send me an email with the pictures, it is typically after 1:00 am. Last night it was 1:06 am to 1:48 am. Thanks to Kimberly Sauer, Lauren Lyssy and Dianne Webster for all of your help and wonderful pictures.
DID YOU KNOW: With all of the strange happenings in the game last night and the fact that Tudor Floru was the referee, I was reminded of all of the great memes from back in the CHL days provided by CHL Memes. Went into the archives and came across this one which seemed appropriate and reminded me of the CHL days.
Finally, on this Veterans Day would like to thank all veterans for their service to our country and a special thought for all of my Vietnam buddies from the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, of the 1st Infantry Division both here and gone. You aren't forgotten! To save you from asking that is me on the left.
Thank you for your service, Barry and thank you for your hard work keeping us all informed regarding the Allen Americans.
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