It was an opening night like no other as the Allen Americans went on the road and beat the Rapid City Rush 8-3 last night before a crowd of 3541 at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center. The eight goals is the most ever scored by the Americans in a season opener, the five goal margin of victory is the largest ever in a season opener and the first goal of the season was a shorthanded goal scored by Jonathan Lessard. A good start for the Americans by any measure. It was just the third time in the nine year history of the Allen franchise the team has started the season on the road and they are a perfect 3-0 in those games.
- Despite the lopsided victory there is plenty of room for improvement, The Rush dominated early, out shooting the Americans 7-1 to start the game and 17-7 in the first period. However, Allen took a 3-2 lead into the first intermission by scoring three goals on those seven first period shots. The Americans need a better start defensively in the rematch against Rapid City tonight.
- Special teams were the best and worst of both worlds last night. The penalty kill was great and is at 100% after killing five Rush power plays including a five minute major. The power play is at 0% after going 0-5. If you recall last season it took a while to get the power play going. At the end of November the power play percentage was 7.8% and ranked 26th in the ECHL. By the end of the season the power play was ranked #3 at 24.4%.
- Goal scorers for Allen were Jonathan Lessard (1&2), Zach Pochiro (1&2), Alex Schoenborn (1), Olivier Archambault (1), Casey Pierro-Zabotel (1) and Joel Chouinard (1). The highlights should be posted at https://www.echl.com/ by the home team but have not been posted yet.
- The following are several game recaps that include goal by goal descriptions and quotes from the coaches.
- Here is the game recap issued by the Allen Americans: https://allenamericans.com/americans-score-early-often-8-3-win-rapid-city/
- Here is the game recap issued by Rapid City: http://www.rapidcityrush.com/news/?article_id=915
- Finally here is a game recap from the Rapid City Journal. Not to pick on the Journal as the story contains some great quotes from coach Tetrault but this article shows why editors/proofreaders/fact checkers are essential. I make plenty of mistakes in this blog but try very hard to get names correct which is easy to check from the boxscore. Here are five mistakes related to Allen players in this story. http://rapidcityjournal.com/sports/allen-spoils-rush-s-th-season-opener-with--/article_6e84ca92-7a29-5760-8092-7ab8b544eecc.html
Mike Gunn plays for Allen not Rapid City
The first goal was scored by Jonathan Lessard shorthanded not Jaynen Rissling (did not play)
It is Tanner Eberle, not Tanner Eberie
It is Olivier not Oliver Archambault
It is Joel Chouinard, not Joel Choulnard
- As coach Daniel Tetrault said after the game, when you get beat 8-3 the good thing his team has another opportunity against Allen on Saturday. The rematch tonight (8:05 pm CT) should be a much closer game.
- The officials scheduled for the rematch tonight are the same as last night, referee Jonathan Sitarski
(#23) and linesmen Erik Contino (#89) and Micheal Miggans (#46).
OTHER COMMENTS
- The attendance in Rapid City last night (3541) was the smallest by over 700 of the eight opening night games around the ECHL. The eight games averaged 5828 led by Tulsa who had 12845 in attendance to watch the Oilers lose to Kansas City 5-3.
- The game last night was live on Facebook as part of a new program called ECHL Showcase where all 27 teams will be showcased at some point during the season. The full schedule is still not available but the Allen vs Rapid city game last night was the first of the series. A way for fans to watch their favorite team free on Facebook in hopes they buy an ECHL TV package. At one point there were close to 700 people watching the ECHL live broadcast last night.
- I know it is only one game, many teams haven't even played their first game yet and Allen scored eight goals last night but it sure looked good to see the league leader stats this morning. Archambault is first in points (4) and assists (3). Pochiro and Pierro-Zabotel are tied for second in points (3). Lessard and Pochiro are tied for the league lead in goals (2). Allen is #1 (Pochiro +5) and #2 (Archambault & Pierro-Zabotel +4) in plus/minus. Moore is #1 in penalty minutes (19) and Eberle is #2 (15 minutes). Mike Gunn and Eric Roy are tied for the league lead in plus/minus for defensemen (+3). It is only one game but a good start for sure.
DID YOU KNOW: The Allen Americans opening night record now stands at 6-3. They are 3-3 at home and 3-0 on the road. No matter when you started following the Americans these games will bring back some memories.
2009-10 - In the first game in team history Allen wins 1-0 in Arizona. Christian Gaudet scored the only goal of the game late in the first period assisted by Bruce Graham and Nino Musitelli. Charlie Effinger was in goal for Allen and Chris Whitley was on the bench. Allen started on the road the first season because the Allen Event Center was not completed. The Americans played their first seven games in franchise history on the road. They returned to Allen after those first seven games 5-1-0-1.
2010-11 - Allen opens at home against Texas, scores three goals (Alexandre Quesnel, Dustin Donaghy, Judd Blackwater) in the first four minutes of the game and coasts to a 5-2 win.
2011-12 - Allen opens at home against Tulsa and gets beat 4-1 with Jim McKenzie getting the Americans only goal with just over a minute left in the game. Most notable in that game was a Gordie Howe hat trick by Tulsa's Gary Steffes who had a goal, an assist and a fight with Allen's Scott Langdon.
2012-13 - Allen opens the season at home and shuts out Arizona 4-0. Scott Howes had two goals in the game. The other goal scorers were Adam Pineault and Darryl Bootland. Steve Silverthorn was in goal and the backup was a rookie by the name of Aaron Dell. Dell would play sparingly the first few weeks of the season but eventually take over the starting role and lead the Americans to their first championship. What ever happened to that Dell guy?
2013-14 - Allen opened the season in Wichita and beat the Thunder 4-3 in a shootout. Allen had a 3-0 lead midway in the game on two goals by Darryl Bootland and one by Jonathan Lessard but let Wichita come back. The hero in the shootout was Kale Kerbashian who scored in the fifth round to win the game.
2014-15 - The worst opening night ever for Allen as they opened at home and got beat by Tulsa 9-6. Greger Hanson was the lone bright spot for Allen with a whopping 11 shots on goal, four points and a hat trick. Aaron Dell was in goal for the Americans and gave up seven of the nine goals. Whatever happened to that Dell guy? Actually, it was Dell's only regulation loss in the 12 games he played for Allen
that season. By the end of January he was in the AHL on his way to the NHL.
2015-16 - Another opening night loss as the Quad City Mallards came to the Allen Event Center and beat the Americans 2-1. Allen's lone goal was scored by Garrett Clarke with assists going to Justin Courtnall and goalie Joel Rumpel. You didn't see those three in the boxscore very often let alone on the same play.
2016-17 - It was an opening night win last season as Allen was at home and beat Missouri 6-3. Kale Kerbashain had two goals and Riley Gill was peppered with 47 shots.
Was it just me or did anyone else notice the lack of love from the Rapid City commentators last night?
ReplyDeleteWhen I listen to our own amazing Tommy Daniels call a game, he is equally fair to the Americans as well as the opposition. The commentators last night had very few nice things to say about Allen. I guess part of that could be because we are whooping up on the home team but even before we were winning by such a large margin, they weren't nice.
I expect a closer game tonight unless RC just stinks. Seems like after every blowout the losing team comes back with a vengeance.
ReplyDeleteDilbert - Yes a couple of Homers - Danny Pinocchio is the worst!
ReplyDelete