As the Allen Americans 2019-20 is season about to get underway I thought it would be a
good time to do the
annual "deep dive" on the Americans schedule. It is probably more
information than you would ever want to know about the schedule but it
will give you many different views of what coach Martinson and the team
will be dealing with.
- From a travel
standpoint the Americans will make one trip to Rapid City, two trips to Idaho and two
trips to Utah. Allen will have two road trips outside the Mountain Division. In November the Americans will travel to Cincinnati for two games. In December, Allen will make a swing that will take them to Adirondack (2 games), then single games in Brampton and Worcester.
-
One of the goals of the ECHL when preparing the schedule is to balance
cost along with having a schedule that avoids teams playing each other
too many times. Allen will be playing 12 different
teams this season compared to 11 last season. However, four of the 12 teams (Cincinnati, Adirondack, Brampton, Worcester)
Allen will only play on the road.
- Below
is a complete list
of Allen's 72 games by opponent. Teams with an asterisk are Mountain Division foes.
13 games - Tulsa (6 home 7 away)*
12 games - Wichita (7 home 5 away)*
11 games - Idaho (6 home 5 away)*
9 games - Rapid City (6 home 3 away)*
9 games - Utah (4 home 5 away)*
8 games - Kansas City (3 home 5 away)*
2 games - Cincinnati (0 home, 2 away)
2 games - Adirondack (0 home 2 away)
2 games - Norfolk (2 home, 0 away)
2 games - Kalamazoo (2 home 0 away)
1 game - Brampton (0 home 1 away)
1 game - Worcester (0 home 1 away)
Note
the emphasis on divisional play. Allen will play 86% of their games (62 of 72) against Mountain Division foes.
- Here is a breakdown of the schedule by day of the week. The biggest change is on Wednesday and Thursday. Last season Allen had five Wednesday home games, this season they have none. Last season Allen didn't play a home game on Thursday, this season they play four. The Americans have three fewer home games (10) on Friday night but gain two Saturday night home games (13). Saturday is the best night for home games based on average attendance.
2019-20 2018-19
Sunday - 8 (3 home, 5 away) 8 - (4 home, 4 away)
Monday - 2 (2 home, 0 away) 1 - (1 home)
Tuesday - 9 (4 home, 5 away) 6 - (4 home, 2 away)
Wednesday - 5 (0 home, 5 away) 9 - (5 home, 4 away)
Thursday - 5 (4 home 1 away) 1 - (1 away)
Friday - 19 (10 home, 9 away) 24 - (13 home, 11 away)
Saturday - 24 (13 home, 11 away) 23 - (11 home, 12 away)
Allen
has typically tried to get more
road games early in the season to avoid conflicts with football plus early season road trips help bring the team together. That is not the case this season. The
following lists the games by month.
2019-20 2018-19
October - 6 games (5 home 1 away) 8 games (1 home 7 away)
November - 13 games (7 home 6 away) 13 games (6 home, 7 away)
December - 15 games (4 home 11 away) 15 games (7 home, 8 away)
January - 14 games (9 home 5 away) 11 games (3 home, 8 away)
February - 11 games (5 home 6 away) 11 games (8 home, 3 away)
March - 10 games (5 home 5 away) 12 games (11 home, 1 away)
April - 3 games (1 home 2 away) 2 games (0 home, 2 away)
Last season the Americans had seven home games in October and November, this season they have 12. Historically Allen has played a lot of home games late in the season. Last season in February and March the Americans played 19 home games and just four away games. This season they will play 10 home games and 11 away games.
-
One of the many things the team looks at when the schedule comes out
is
how many times they have to play three games back to back to back. Three
games
in three days is stressful especially if there is travel involved.
Players are more prone to injuries in these situations. In 2018-19 that
happened eight times. In 2019-20 Allen will play three games in three days seven times and five of them involve travel.
November 22, 23, 24 - Wichita (H), Wichita (H), Wichita (A)
December 13, 14, 15 - Adirondack (A), Adirondack (A), Brampton (A)
December 20, 21, 22 - Rapid City (H), Rapid City (H), Wichita (A)
January 2, 3, 4 - Kansas City (H), Kansas City (H), Wichita (H)
Jan. 30, 31, Feb 1 - Tulsa (H), Wichita (A), Wichita (A)
February 21, 22, 23 - Tulsa (H), Wichita (H), Tulsa (A)
March 26, 27, 28 - Idaho (H), Idaho (H), Tulsa (H)
-
Four games in five days is really brutal and that happened three times
last season. This season the Americans will play four games in five days just two times.
December 18, 20, 21, 22 - Worcester (A), Rapid City (H), Rapid City (H), Wichita (A)
January 10, 11, 13, 14 - Kalamazoo (H), Kalamazoo (H), Utah (H), Utah (H)
- Eight of the 12 teams on Allen's schedule this season made
the playoffs last season. Of Allen's 72 regular season games (67%) will
be against the eight teams that made the playoffs.
-
Allen had the worst winning percentage in the ECHL last season so every team they play this season had a better winning percentage than the Americans last season. Here
is a complete
list of the 12 teams the Americans play this season in winning percentage order from last season. The number of games Allen will
play each team this season is in
parentheses:
.764 - Cincinnati (2)
.625 - Tulsa (13)
.611 - Idaho (11)
.576 - Utah (9)
.576 - Adirondack (2)
.549 - Brampton (1)
.542 - Kansas City (8)
.535 - Kalamazoo (2)
.521 - Worcester (1)
.486 - Wichita (12)
.479 - Rapid City (9)
.438 - Norfolk (2)
.389 - ALLEN
-
The easiest part of the
schedule for Allen will be the month of March.
They play only 10 games all month (5 home, 5 away).
- The toughest part of the schedule will be in December. The Americans will play 15 games and 11 of them are on the road. Allen will make two trips to Idaho and also have a road trip that takes them to Adirondack, Brampton and Worcester. The Americans will be on the road before and after the Christmas break (December 23-25).
- Allen plays Tulsa at home six times this season but Allen fans won't see the Oilers at the Allen Event Center (AEC) until January 30.
- If fans are looking to travel to Tulsa, Wichita or Kansas City when Allen plays back to back road games in one of these cites there is only one choice. Of the 14 away games against these three teams, all are stand alone games with the exception of Saturday November 30 and Sunday December 1 in Tulsa.
- Here is the complete 2019-20 Allen Americans schedule if you don't already have it: http://allenamericans.com/schedule/
DID YOU KNOW: During the 2015-16 season the Allen Americans were scheduled to travel 30,000 miles to their 36 road
games with 22,000 miles being on the bus. They flew on the 8,000 mile round trip to
Alaska.
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