The Allen Americans lost to the Idaho Steelheads 3-2 in overtime last night before a sellout crowd of 5293 at the Idaho Central Arena. It was an impressive 21st sellout in 22 home games for Idaho this season. Despite the fact Allen has blown third period leads in back to back games that led to an overtime loss and shootout loss the Americans played a good game last night.
- Allen surrendered the first goal of the game at the 16:18 mark of the first period but immediately responded when Easton Brodzinski scored the equalizer just 60 seconds later. The game was tied 1-1 at the end of the first period.
- Allen was the better team in the second period outshooting Idaho 17-11. It looked like it would be a scoreless period until Hank Crone took a great pass from Eric Williams an blasted it home with 15 seconds left. Allen took its 2-1 lead into the second intermission and all looked good for the Americans. The Americans hadn't lost a road game all season (9-0-0-0) when leading after the second period prior to blowing the lead in Kansas City last Saturday. Certainly it wouldn't happen again, but it did.
- Idaho scored the only goal of the third period to tie the scored 2-2 and force overtime. It took 58 seconds into overtime for Idaho to score the game winner. The Americans never got the puck out of its defensive zone, lost a faceoff, turned the puck over and that was all Idaho needed to score the game winner. Allen's overtime/shootout record has fallen to 2-3 (.400).
- Despite the back to back blown leads the last two games that led to an overtime loss and shootout loss there was a lot of encouraging stats from the game last night.
- Allen had allowed 5.2 goals per game in the previous five games in Idaho. Last night the Americans gave up just two goals in regulation.
- In the previous five games the average shots favored Idaho 48-28. Last night the shot total in regulation time was in favor of Idaho 36-33. It was the first game all season (home or away) Allen held Idaho to fewer than 41 shots.
- Allen held the league's best power play unit scoreless (0-3).
- After going 0-8-0-0 against Idaho last season Allen proved last night it can play with the Steelheads on the road. Getting three of six points out of this series, just like last week against Kansas City, is a realistic goal.
- Goal scorers for Allen were Easton Brodzinski (17) and Hank Crone (15). They along with Colby McAuley (19 goals) are the Americans leading goal scorers. Here are the video highlights with the goals and some great saves by both goalies: https://echl.com/videos/allen-americans-vs-idaho-steelheads-jan-31-2024
- Here are the game recaps issued by both teams:
- Allen Americans: https://allenamericans.com/news/2024/01/game-recap-americans-earn-a-point-in-overtime-loss
- Idaho Steelheads: https://idahosteelheads.com/news/2024/01/ty-pelton-byce-scores-58-seconds-into-overtime-in-3-2-win
- The teams will have today off before the series resumes Friday night. One area that is key for Allen to winning this the weekend is an improved power play. Over the last 15 games dating back to the series at home against Idaho at the end of December the Allen power play percentage is 9.8% (5-51). During the current road trip to Kansas City and now Idaho the power play percentage is just 7.7% (1-13). When you are taking on the best power play team in the ECHL, Allen will have to win the special teams battle if it expects to win.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Allen has lost two straight games but also has the longest point streak (3 games) in the Mountain Division (1-0-1-1). The longest point streak in the ECHL is Adirondack who has points in 14 straight games on record of 12-0-1-1.
- There are four ECHL teams with a points percentage above .700 and they are the four division leaders. All four division leaders have a sizeable lead. Here are the points percentages for the top two teams in each division:
- North Division
- .744 Adirondack
- .548 Norfolk
- South Division
- .726 Greenville
- .625 South Carolina
- Central Division
- .700 Toledo
- .575 Wheeling
- Mountain Division
- .775 Kansas City
- .667 Idaho
- Here are the Mountain Division Friday night games:
- Allen at Idaho
- Utah at Tulsa
- Kansas City at Wichita
- Rapid City at Maine
- After this series with Idaho the Allen Americans will play 13 of 18 games through March 23 at home. Of the 13 home games six will be against Tulsa and five against Kansas City. Of the five road games during this period there will be one game road trips to Tulsa and Wichita and a three game road trip to Kalamazoo.
Stats are great but if they don’t translate to wins, then well…….
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