Trevor Ludwig Out Indefinitely & Martinson Post Game Comments

The good news is the Allen Americans stopped the Rapid City Rush 12 game road win streak with a 2-1 hard earned victory before a disappointing crowd of 3422 at the Allen Event Center (AEC) last night. The bad news is they have lost Trevor Ludwig indefinitely, possibly the rest of the season, to a bad cut on his arm which severed a couple of tendons according to coach Martinson. A tough break for Trevor who epitomizes the saying, "if I didn't have bad luck I would have no luck at all." He has had three major injuries in the last three years with knee surgery (2011-2012) where he lost the last three months of the season, of course last year when he broke his jaw in the playoff finals, and this year with the arm cut. I know he has a positive attitude and always says, he will be okay as injuries are part of hockey, but it has to be difficult. Let's hope we see him back in time for playoffs!

If you remember from the comparison statistics yesterday two big keys to the game were to not let Rapid City get an early lead and take advantage of the Rush poor penalty killing. The Americans delivered on both counts as Rapid City never had a lead in the game and the Americans scored both of their goals (Tyler Ludwig & Daniel Tetrault) on the power play. If Allen can find a way to duplicate this effort tonight and get a weekend sweep they will be right back in the race for first place in the CHL.

MARTINSON POST GAME COMMENTS:

- A good start to the weekend. A lot of positives again tonight as we got a couple of power play goals and killed Rapid's three power play opportunities including that 5 on 3 at the end of the game. The one goal we did allow was four on four which has been a problem as I wish we could decline four on four hockey.

-  Trevor Ludwig is probably out for the season. He got his arm sliced pretty bad and I guess it cut a couple of tendons. It is a nasty one and it is not good. I've learned in this business what is done is done and you have to move on and figure out what you are going to do from here. Losing Trevor is a tough loss but hopefully he can get back for the playoffs. I just know it is a nasty, long recovery injury.

- Ross Rouleau is eligible to come off injured reserve so he should be able to be in the line up tomorrow. 

- The penalty against Brian McMillin that gave them the 5 on 3 I will have to look at again but that was a strange call. I will clip that and send it to the league to have them take a look at it. It is always easier to complain when you win the game.

- We are getting guys in front of the net on the power play. It was a nice one timer again on Tyler's goal. He is pretty hot (five goals in last three games) so we need to get him more shots.

- We did a great job on the 5 on 3 penalty kill.  Pitton was outstanding on that penalty kill as well as the whole night. He will be in goal again tomorrow night.

- We did a good job tonight keeping their shots to the outside and not giving up point blank shots right in front of the goalie. We kept most of their shots at a good angle.

- I told Pitton it is okay to go out of the net when the puck gets shot into our zone but stop playing the cycle. He tries to go in as the third defenseman when they are cycling the puck.

- The goalie position is not going to be our problem going forward. Pitton has been outstanding and Guggenberger was the second best goalie in the ECHL last year and was the best goalie in the CHL they year before. We have hung him out to dry many times when he has played. We need to get a little more foot speed on defense so we have asked some guys to cut a couple of pounds and see if we can get a little quicker on the back line.

- I thought tonight we needed to do a better job jumping in the holes when the defense broke up the puck. Rapid is a hard working team that doesn't give you much time so when the defense knocks down the puck or stops the play we have to jump quicker. I thought we were a little hesitant but I am reluctant to say too much until I review the tape and take a closer look.

- We were better defensively tonight and we have to be better defensively if we want to be the top team in the league. We have to cut our goals against down and we have to stay out of the penalty box. I didn't think we were as physical as we could have been but we didn't take bad penalties.

- We will continue to play McMillin against the other teams top line. I try to play Kerbashian & Bootland against the other teams most physical line and Lovoie against the other teams least experienced line if they have one. I will look at the match ups when I review the game to see if I like them.

- Lukin has been skating and practicing with the team and unless he suffers some set back should be available next weekend.

 - From our standpoint this game felt like if we were going to get back in the race we needed to to it now and against this team. We have a lot of pride, we are the champions from last year and we are not where we think we should be right now. We wanted to be the team that stopped the streak. It was a good win for us to stop their streak. They have had a fabulous start to the season.

OTHER COMMENTS:

- Jamie Schaafsma continued his hot streak with assists on both goals last night. He has scored in six of the last seven games with ten points (4 goals 6 assists).

- Tyler Ludwig has a four game scoring streak with six points (5 goals 1 assist) and is a +6 in these four games.

- Thought Bryan Pitton deserved one the the three stars last night based on his GAA of 1.00 and save percentage of .965 as he stopped 28 of 29 shots.

- It was nice for a change to gain some ground on the teams ahead of Allen in the standings. Not only did the Americans beat Rapid City, Missouri lost to Brampton.

- Have to say the attendance last night was very disappointing (3422).  The defending champion Americans are playing great hockey with a three game win streak, you have the top team in the league in town, with a 12-0-0 road record, a weekend series and plenty of time to market the game. If it wasn't for Denver who was playing in Aspen in an arena with a capacity if 450, Allen would have  had the smallest crowd in the league last night. The good news is the crowd for the game tonight will be bigger.

-It has been a tough few weeks for the Ludwig family with Trevor getting hurt last night. Younger brother (CJ) who plays college hockey for Northern Michigan University and is captain of the team, suffered a season ending knee injury the last day of November.

- St Charles beat Quad City last night 4-3 as Jim McKenzie scored the first goal for Quad City and John Snowden got the tying goal for St. Charles in the third period.


DID YOU KNOW: Cherry Picker:  A player who stays at center ice and does not help their team on defense.  They hope to pick up a break out pass with no defenders in their way.