Katic Hat Trick Leads to Victory, Game Recap, Video Highlights. Martinson's Comments, Tonight's Preview, Why Juggle the Lines, ECHL Hat Tricks and More

 

The Allen Americans beat the Tulsa Oilers 5-3 last night to extend their winning streak to four games, the longest of the season. A crowd of 6144, on Teddy Bear Toss night, watched Harrison Blaisdell cause the Teddy Bears to rain down in the first period, after Tulsa had taken a 1-0 lead.

 

- The game was close for two periods, with the teams trading goals. Tulsa scored the first goal of the game midway through the opening period, before Blaisdell scored his eighth goal of the season at the 15:02 mark on the power play. The first period ended with a 1-1 tie. Allen had a 14-12 edge in shots.

 

- The back and forth continued in the second period. Tulsa scored a power play goal 81 seconds after puck drop to take a 2-1 lead. Allen responded just 45 seconds later, tying the score 2-2 on Danny Katic's sixth goal of the season. That was the end of the second period scoring. Allen had a 14-11 advantage in shots.

 

- The Americans took control of the game in the third period, thanks to two more Katic goals (7, 8) at 6:38 and 8:00 to take a 4-2 lead. Tulsa pulled its goalie, which led to a Brayden Watts empty-net goal, his team leading 10th goal of the season. It looked like Katic could have scored the empty net goal for his fourth of the game, but unselfishly opted to pass the puck to Watts. It was disappointing to see Allen give up a late goal after they took a 5-2 lead. Costantini deserved a better defensive effort than giving up a 2-on-1 goal with a three-goal lead and 102 seconds left in the game. With that said, Costantini has won six straight games, stopping 188 of 198 shots for a .950 save percentage. Marco will get a rest tonight, David Tendeck will get the start in Tulsa.

 

- Here is the game recap from the Americans and the video highlights

• Allen Americans: https://allenamericans.com/news/2025/12/game-recap-americans-beat-oilers-5-3
• Video Highlights: https://echl.com/videos/tulsa-oilers-vs-allen-americans-dec-19-2025   

 

TONIGHT'S PREVIEW

-  Allen has had a lot of firsts recently:

• First four-game win streak
• First four straight series wins.
• First time with point percentage above .550 (.563)
• First time with a positive goal differential (+2, 77 GF, 75 GA)

 

- The Americans have already won this series against Tulsa, but they have a chance to meet another milestone with a win tonight. Allen has not swept a series all season. Allen has outscored Tulsa 10-5 in the first two games. A win tonight will be another first.

  

 

 

- Every player will go on this road trip; nobody stays home. The Americans have only 21 players on the roster, so just one extra player on the trip. I would expect you won't see any changes to the Allen lineup or lines tonight, other than David Tendeck will get the start in goal. A couple of players were dinged up in the game last night, so there is always a chance one of them will sit out, but don't count on it. 

 

 

- Here is the game day preview issued by the Allen Americans: https://allenamericans.com/news/2025/12/game-day-americans-at-tulsa-705-pm 

 

 

- There will be two referees working the game tonight. Camden Fraser (#58) worked the game in Allen last night. He will be joined by Cameron Fleming (#27). As a reminder, each team will have two referees for half of their regular-season home games. (18 of 36).   

 

 

 STEVE MARTINSON'S POST-GAME COMMENTS

"It is good to see the scoring coming from all over the lineup like we have seen recently. It was fun to see that line get some goals tonight, as they have been a little frustrated lately. A key to our success is getting scoring from all of the lines as we have recently."

"I felt bad for our goalie giving up that 2-on-1 goal at the end of the game. That really pissed me off."

"Games are a lot more fun now, wouldn't you agree? We got some good hits in the game."

"It was nice to get a power play early, but then we fell asleep on our power play chances. We are not shooting the puck enough on the power play. We need the fans to start chanting shoot. shoot, shoot, so I am not the only one yelling to shoot."

"We bus up to Tulsa tomorrow, and we have to win another game before finishing the four games in five days in Kansas City on Sunday afternoon."  

 

OTHER COMMENT

- If you follow the Allen lineup closely, you have noticed there have been a lot of line changes over the first part of the season. Many factors play into line combinations. Coach Martinson has told me it is no fun for him to juggle lines, as it is tough to keep track of who goes with whom. Here are some of the factors Martinson considers when he decides the lines:

• Home games, where the coach has the last change, call for different line combinations than road games.
• Early in the season, Martinson juggles lines in an attempt to get the most out of each player.
• Some players are best when they play with the right people.
• Some players are capable of playing on any line.
• If an opposing team loads up the best players on one line, it changes how Martinson puts his lines together. At home, he will load up a line to play against that top line.  
• If an opposing team spreads out its best scorers, the lines can change.
• The more complete a player is, the more likely they can play with anybody. Duarte is in the AHL because he is that type of player.
• Sometimes on the road, a team is matching up against one of our lines, so Martinson will break that line up. 
• Another factor in line combinations is something Martinson has always talked about. He believes whoever is going gets the ice time. If a player is having an off night and his two linemates aren't, that player will get moved.
• Martinson has always said he tries to keep two players together who have chemistry.
• Other factors in line combination are trying to have a puck carrier, a playmaker, and a net front guy on every line. Toughness on every line is also a consideration, as is speed.   

 The goal is to have lines that stay together, and if you noticed, last night was the first game all season where there were no line changes from the previous game. In Coach Martinson's words, "we are getting closer," and I read that to mean you will see lines staying together more in the future, but for all the reasons above, there will always be exceptions.  

  

- The pure hat trick by Katic was Allen's fifth hat trick of the season (Blaisdell, Duarte, Watts, Crone). Katic had a four-point game and leads the team in points per game (1.29), which ranks him #4 in the ECHL in points per game (minimum 10 games played). 

 

- The odd stat of the day is Allen's five hat tricks represent 24% of all the hat tricks in the ECHL this season. There has been a total of 21 hat-tricks thus far, and the Americans have five of them. A total of 16 teams do not have a single hat trick.  

The Americans are just a third of the way through the season and already rank #4 in most hat tricks in a season, since Allen joined the ECHL in 2014-15. Here is the list of the most hat-tricks in a single season.

• 2022-23 - 8 hat tricks
• Crone (3)
• Hargrove (2)
• Finlay (2)
• Novak 

• 2021-22 - 6 hat tricks
• Troock (2)
• Costello
• Gould
• Winquist
• Henman

• 2014-15 - 6 hat tricks
• Combs (2)
• Costello
• Hanson
• Follmer
• Abeltshauser 

• 2025-26 - 5 hat tricks
• Blaisdell
• Duarte
• Watts
• Crone
• Katic 

 

 

- The Allen Americans won their seventh home game last night (7-4-1-0). The seven home wins match Allen's total for the entire season last year (7-24-4-1). 

 

Allen has won eight of its last 11 games. One year ago, Allen was in the midst of a losing streak that saw the team lose 13 of 14 games.     

 

 

 

- A few of the streaks from yesterday's post stayed alive last night:

• Marco Costantini has won six straight games. 
• Colby McAuley has 2 goals and 3 assists in the last 3 games.  
• Sam Sedley has a 6-game point streak (1G, 5A). 
• Brayden Watts has a 5-game point streak (3G, 4A).  

 

 

- Allen gained some ground on a couple of teams ahead of them last night. The top two teams in the division lost at home last night. Utah beat Kansas City 7-4, and Rapid City beat Idaho 4-3. The teams play again tonight. Here are the Mountain Division standings by points percentage. Notice the discrepancy in games played, which varies from 24 to 28:

 

• .667 - Kansas City (24 games)
• .661 - Idaho (28 games)
• .571 - Tahoe (28 games)
• .563 - Allen (24 games)
• .520 - Wichita (25 games)
• .500 - Rapid City (26 games)
• .480 - Utah (25 games)
• .375 - Tulsa (24 games) 

 

- It is another busy night around the ECHL with 14 games on the schedule. All eight Mountain Division teams are in action, playing the same teams as last night. The only change is that the Allen vs Tulsa game switches to Tulsa: 

• Allen at Tulsa
• Utah at Kansas City
• Rapid City at Idaho
• Wichita at Tahoe 

 Here is the ECHL Today with previews of all 14 games: https://echl.com/news/2025/12/echl-today-dec-20 

DID YOU KNOW: Here are the best home and road teams in the ECHL:

•  Best Home Teams
• .909 - South Carolina (10-1-0-0)
• .864 - Wheeling (9-1-1-0)
• .833 - Atlanta (10-2-0-0

• Best Road Teams
• .833 - Kansas City (9-1-1-1)
• .750 - Florida (10-3-1-0)
• .750 - Fort Wayne (11-3-2-0)

 

- So much for home ice advantage. The three teams with the best road record all have a better road record than home record, and one isn't even close. Here is a comparison:

• Kansas City - .833 road, .500 home
• Florida - .750 road, .682 home
• Fort Wayne - .750 road, .611 home