Led by a Jordan Topping hat trick the Allen Americans ended their three game losing streak in style last night with a 7-2 win over the Wichita Thunder before a crowd of 4005 at the Allen Event Center. In the process Allen coach Steve Martinson earned his 1027 career win as a professional coach and tied John Brophy for second place on the all time win time list. Only Scotty Bowman with 1244 wins has more coaching wins than Steve Martinson.
- The Americans had a power play goal and a shorthanded goal in the first 5:23 of the game and never looked back. Wichita was able to cut the score to 2-1 and 3-2 but Allen scored four unanswered goals in the second half of the game to win going away. The seven goals matched the Americans highest goal production of the season.
- Allen improved their record against Wichita this season to 4-0-2-0. The Americans have outscored the Thunder 26-14. The teams meet again in Wichita on Tuesday.
- Goal scorers for Allen were Jordan Topping (13,14,15), Corey Durocher (7), Gabe Gagne (17, 18) and Alex Guptill (15).
- Video highlights with all of the goals:
STEVE MARTINSON'S POST GAME COMMENTS
"That was a lot more fun. We got the puck upstairs and had some traffic in front which led to goals."
"We minimized our turnovers and gave up fewer odd man rushes. We defended harder when we did give up odd man rushes. I thought we turned the corner last night we just didn't win."
"Paterson came out strong tonight and Topping was snapping that puck, he has a wicked wrist shot."
"It is good we responded the way we did tonight and get this turned around right away."
"Dereck Baribeau is being recalled by Iowa."
OTHER COMMENTS
- Allen's strength this season has been their depth. A case in point is the Americans have five players with 15+ goals (Gagne, VanWormer, Sheehy, Guptill, Topping). No other team in the league has more than two.
- With the game last night Allen has passed the halfway point of the season and currently has an 11 point lead in the Mountain Division standings. Allen and Wichita have played the most games (37) in the ECHL while Atlanta has played the fewest (30). Here are the Mountain Division standings by winning percentage:
.730 - Allen
.636 - Utah
.597 - Idaho
.591 - Rapid City
.500 - Kansas City
.486 - Wichita
.458 - Tulsa
- With their next win Allen will match their win total (25) and point total (56) for the entire 2018-19 season. Now that is a turnaround.
DID YOU KNOW: It goes without saying how fortunate the Allen Americans are to have Steve Martinson, the second most winning coach (1027 games) ever in North America pro hockey, as their coach and general manager. Martinson has 10 championships in his 24 years as a coach including four in seven years at the helm in Allen. His regular season record in Allen is 300-171-24-21. That computes to a winning percentage of .621. He has coached in 17 playoff series with the Americans and has a record of 15-2. Martinson is 5-1 is seven game playoff series including 2-0 in seven game championship finals.
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