Martinson Post Game Comments, Balanced Scoring, Denver Fires President/GM & Stats

The Allen Americans took care of business Sunday afternoon scoring three unanswered goals after giving up the first goal of the game to beat the St. Charles Chill 3-1. Allen was led by Tyler Ludwig who had two power play goals and has now scored at least one point in 13 consecutive games. Darryl Bootland got the other goal, his second in as many nights.

MARTINSON POST GAME COMMENTS:

- I liked the fact that we got a couple of power play goals tonight (they were 1-17 going into this game). We did not look good on the first power play but then we got a couple of shots and screens. When you one time the puck it is tougher on the goalie to find it and then when you have traffic in front of the net it makes it even more difficult. So the power play was the biggest positive tonight.

- The third period was another positive. We tried to carry the puck into the zone way too much rather than dump the puck in. We talk about it all of the time but some players want to make the big play and it results in turnovers and some bad habits. It wasn't a lot of fun the first two periods as it was not our best effort. In the third period we woke up and played much better (Allen had a 21-8 shot advantage). The first two periods we had puck possession but the shots were even and I kept wondering why are we letting these guys hang around.

- We need a good week of practice as we prepare for a home and home series with Wichita this weekend. It will be a tough two games as they are a good team and there is some bad blood between Allen and Wichita so we will see what these two games bring.

- Once again Trevor Hendrikx makes a great hip check and gets called for a penalty. It seems to be the same thing, everytime he hits a guy hard they call a penalty. There was a CHL supervisor here tonight and I told him it is frustrating when you have to tell a player not to hit in close games because clean hits are being called penalties. I will keep sending clips of these clean hard  hits into the league office.

- Alex Lavoie left tickets for Alex Chiasson & Antoine Roussel of the Dallas Stars and some of the stuff he was trying to do on the ice made me think he was trying to show off for them. I wasn't sure if the Dallas players showed up as I wanted to tell Lavoie they aren't here so go back to playing your normal game. (I did see Roussel talking to Lavoie and Lessard after the game).

- Ryley Grantham has been okay as he has had some good hits. He is a little out of shape yet as he has only played in six games all year before arriving in Allen.

- I am pleased with the line combinations we have now. When you play the last place team in back to back games players get into some bad habits and try to do too much. We had a lot of good chances this weekend where we didn't score. I am trying to not be hard on the guys when we have games like the last two as were in control and won both games. You can't be hard on the guys all of the time and while we talk about what we need to do the guys want to make plays. I understand that as it was the same when I played. I don't want to justify it but we tried to do too much at times.

OTHER COMMENTS:

- After a slow start when he first arrived in Allen, Mark Guggenberger has won his last six starts and his GAA is coming down (3.00) and his save percentage is now at .905.

- Alex Lavoie was held to one assist last night and now has 53 points (20 goals 33 assists) in 39 games. Alex will soon surpass the leaders from last year in goals (Schaafsma - 24), assists (Tyler Ludwig - 40) and points (Anthony Maiani 55).

- Will have to ask Tommy Daniels for this information but Tyler Ludwig's scoring streak must be a record or close to a record. Tyler has scored in 13 straight games and has 9 goals and 8 assists in that stretch. He is third in scoring among all CHL defensemen and leads in goals with 12.

- Nice to see the power play back on track scoring on two of five power play chances after only scoring on one of seventeen chances in the last four games. Special teams will be a key next weekend against Wichita.

- The three stars of the game were #1 Tyler Ludwig, #2 Darryl Bootland, & #3 Mark Guggenberger.

- The announced crowd for the game was 3658 which was disappointing from my point of view. The common wisdom was after football season and the first of the year attendance would pick up. Thus far that hasn't been the case. While average attendance for Allen is up over last year it is by only ten people per game (4167 vs 4157). I expected a much bigger increase this year based on last year's championship season. There are only 12 home dates remaining so there is limited time to increase the 4167 average. The CHL average attendance is at 3494 compared to 3706 last year.

- Have seen several reports that Denver President/General Manager Ben Rifkin has been relieved of his duties with the Denver Cutthroat organization. Average attendance for the Cutthroats is only 1279 which is the lowest in all of minor league hockey. What makes this number even worse is that it is less than half what Denver averaged last year (2981).

- There are lots of ways to look at balanced scoring so decided to see how many players have at least 25 points on each team. Here are the results:
Allen -         8
Tulsa -         7
Brampton -  7
Arizona -     5
Missouri -    5
Rapid City - 5
Quad City -  4
Wichita -      4
Denver -       2
St. Charles - 2

DID YOU KNOW: The Americans have taken 1324 shots this season for an average of 34 per game. This is the highest average in team history.