The Allen Americans defeated the Rapid City Rush last night 5-3 to sweep their weekend series by outscoring the Rush 13-6. It was quite a weekend for the line combination of Casey Pierro-Zabotel, Zach Pochiro and Olivier Archambault who created opportunities every time they were on the ice together and were solid in the defensive zone. Here is how dominant this group was in Rapid City. They collectively scored seven goals, the rest of the team scored six. They had 17 points, the rest of the team had 13 points. They had a plus/minus of +24, the rest of the team was +15.
- Rapid City got off to a good start last night when former Allen Americans forward Alex Guptill scored a power play goal just 3:36 into the game. Allen came right back 87 seconds later on a Zach Pochiro unassisted goal to tie the game 1-1. By the end of the first period the Americans had taken a 3-1 lead and the Rush were never able to get closer than one goal the remainder of the game.
- Goal scorers for Allen were Zach Pochiro (3), Dalton Thrower (1), Olivier Archambault (2&3) and Bryan Moore (1). You can see all the goals on ECHL Rewind. Notice the number of times Allen was able to get behind the Rush defense to score. The Moore 2 on 0 breakaway goal was as wide open as you will ever see two players. https://www.echl.com/
- Here are the game recaps issued by Allen and Rapid City that include goal by goal descriptions.
Allen: https://allenamericans.com/americans-sweep-weekend-games-rapid-city/
Rapid City: http://www.rapidcityrush.com/news/?article_id=916
POST GAME COMMENTS
Here are some post game quotes from both coaches. The Daniel Tetrault quotes are courtesy of the Rapid City Journal.
"It is good to get the four points this weekend but we have some work to do to improve how we play in front of our net.".....Allen coach Steve Martinson
"We handed them everything they got. They are a good team, they know how to put the puck in the net but I thought we out worked them and out played them for most of the game. The effort was there, it is just the mental, costly dangerous mistakes that are costing us, especially tonight."..... Rapid City coach Daniel Tetrault
"We need to do a better job back checking hard all of the way.".....Martinson
"My defense has to play a lot better. They are forcing the issue, they are trying too hard. They are making costly mistakes and we have to clean up on the back end, definitely.".....Tetrault
"It is hard to believe we lead the league in goals but can't score on the power play going 0-9 in these two games.".....Martinson
"This is a top team in the league we are playing. We have only four returning guys. I have all new guys. I have a depleted lineup. We are going to get it together, we are going to clean this thing up and we are going to start winning hockey games. We believe in these guys, the effort is there.".....Tetrault
"We have five days to work on the things we need to fix and I am confident we will do just that.".....Martinson
OTHER COMMENTS
- The team headed back to Allen immediately after the game and will arrive home early this evening. The trip is just over 1000 miles and will take the team 17-18 hours to complete.
- When you outscore your opponent 13-6 in the first two games of the season you create some impressive stats. After two games Allen has a plus/minus of +39. Only 10 teams had a better plus/minus than +39 for the entire year last season. The other off the chart stat is Allen's shooting percentage which stands at 19.4%. Last season the Americans were #2 in the ECHL with a shooting percentage of 12.9%.
- Allen players are all over the ECHL leader board with Archambault #1 in points (7) with Pochiro and Pierro-Zabotel tied for #3 in points (5). However, the most impressive stat is to look at the league plus/minus leaders. Allen players hold the top five spots. Archambault, Pierro-Zabotel and Pochiro occupy the top spot with +8. Joel Chouinard and Eric Roy are right behind in fourth and fifth spot at +5.
- Zach Pochiro was identified early as the type of player that could thrive playing for Steve Martinson. He was the surprise of training camp doing even better than anticipated. He has now gotten off to a great start with five points (3 goals 2 assists) in the two games in Rapid City. Last season playing in Norfolk, Zach had just three goals in 42 games. Keep an eye on #18 when he plays his first games at home next weekend.
- A tip of the hat to Mike Gunn who had an assist in Rapid City but also two fights. Throw in the fight he had in preseason and Mike already has has three fights this season. The rest of the team combined has just three fights. Mike is the type of player that is a team first guy and without a pure enforcer on the team has stepped up to protect his teammates. Mike has never had more than five fights in a season according to dropyourgloves.com but that will probably change this year.
- It is only two games into the season so drawing any conclusions at this point is a fool's folly but it is interesting to look at the Mountain Division standings. Three teams are at the top with 2-0 records and three are at the bottom with 0-2 records with one team in the middle at 1-1. Is it possible the first two games will predict the outcome of the season? Allen, Colorado and Wichita at the top, Utah, Tulsa and Rapid City at the bottom with Idaho in the middle. This may be closer than you think when game 72 rolls around.
- There are just five teams in the ECHL with a 2-0 record and three of them are in the Mountain Division. There are two teams (South Carolina & Reading) that won't play their first game until next weekend.
DID YOU KNOW: Allen has an impressive regular season point streak dating back to last season that is now at 17-0-1-0. The last time the Americans lost in regulation time in the regular season was a 3-2 loss to Rapid City at the Allen Event Center on February 19th.
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