Martinson Post Game Comments & Other Thoughts - 2/1/13

Brennan Traded To Arizona photo by SceneByKimberly.com

At the risk of sounding like a homer, which I am, I wanted to start out my post this morning with my uninformed take on what I see and hear happening around the rink the past few games. I know the current streak is unprecedented in the short history of the Americans franchise so these losses, especially at home, are tough to take. But let's not forget we are still in first place, we were all excited about the influence of the new minority ownership group a couple on months ago, this team was unbeatable when everyone was healthy, Steve Martinson has won six championships in 16 years of coaching and has only missed the playoffs once in his coaching career and this team was built for the playoffs. Now is the time to show support, patience, and understanding that the team is shorthanded right now, they are not standing pat and this will get turned around. The on ice group (Martinson, Matvichuk, Kudwig, Belfour) is working hard and when we get our key players back along with the recent additions everything will be fine.

Here are some of the comments Coach Martinson made after the game last night:

- We are back in the same place again losing a one goal game, having a lead and taking a bad penalty, we are short players and take a five minute penalty, as the game went on we got tired and couldn't generate enough scoring chances.

- Hopefully we won't get any suspensions from tonight's game (Grantham or Deitsch)

- We are not playing good enough to take bad penalties. We want to be a physical team without taking penalties. Normally if a player keeps taking bad penalties I will take away ice time but with us short handed right now that is not possible.

- Trevor Hendrikx was signed today and will be in Allen on Tuesday. Trevor played 45 games for Allen last year and was playing for Bakersfield in the ECHL this year.

- I would hope by next week we will get Pineault and Lukin back and we will have more flexibility on who gets ice time.

- Kip Brennan was traded today to Arizona for future considerations. Kip was traded to clear up a roster spot for Trevor Hendrikx. It was a unanimous decision among the management group that trading Kip was the best choice for the team at this point.

- The positives from the game were we came out strong, the penalty kill remains strong and we did a much better job of keeping Arizona from in front of the net.

- Skinner may be back for next weekend. He will be in Grand Rapids for three games but it could be extended.

- There will be no more CHL trades before the trade deadline (Monday) but we will sign some European players but signing them will not have any immediate impact on the team. It will give us options down the road. There will be no announcement unless and until they show up to play which will be in March.

- Even without Brennan we are still the toughest team in the league no doubt.

- Adding Kerbashian, Doyle, and Hendrikx in the last three weeks will improve our team and it shows we will make changes where needed.

Trevor Hendrikx Returning to Allen