ALLEN WINS IN INDY......BARELY!  ALLEN DROPS GAME TO KWINGS

While Barry is on vacation, the views contained in this blog do not represent Barry, or those of the Allen Americans Organization.

Free internet was limited at Chicago Midway to 30 mins, therefore we were unable to provide this blog yesterday.

Saturday nights game was probably a little more exciting to watch in person than it was watching ECHL TV or listening.  Most of the Indy fans were very nice, although we took some gentle heckling all in fun, and of course, there is always that one who has had too much to drink.  Funny how when you mention "playoffs" to these hecklers, they quit taunting real quick. Game play was definitely a battle of two bad defenses.  One has to wonder which one was worse, or better than the other. Lucky for Allen some offense was in play and Allen was able to score the winning OT goal just 38 seconds into OT.

Awesome entrance for Fuel.  Felt the heat in our seats.

Indy Game Recap:

- Newly arrived players from the San Jose Barracuda (they flew directly into Indy from San Jose on Saturday), Matt Willows and Jake Marchment accounted for three of the Allen goals.  Willows had 2 goals and Marchment had 1

-Chad Costello, the game's third star, had 1 goal and 2 assists which gave him over 400 career assists and made him the Americans all-time points leader with 236, surpassing Bruce Graham's prior record of 235.

-Greger Hanson was the game's first star.  Greger had 2 goals and an assist and was +3 for the game

-The game was a see-saw battle with each team scoring 2 goals in each period of regulation resulting in 5 lead changes

-The Americans were down a goal with 47 seconds left in the third when, using an extra attacker, Eric Roy scored the tying goal.  The game winner in OT was scored by Chad Costello from a great feed by Spencer Asuchak.

The ice was orange in Halloween celebration for the Kalamazoo wings game on Sunday afternoon. With the way this game played out, we don't think you will see Americans skating on orange ice any time soon.  We saw the team at the hotel just as we were arriving there, and they were leaving for the game.  Not an excuse, but almost all were dragging.  They arrived in Kalamazoo at 4 a.m. and were leaving for the arena about 1 p.m.  This was one road trip from hell as they got back from Tulsa in the wee hours on Wednesday only to board the bus later that day for Ft. Wayne for back to back to back games. You have to wonder if the rationale for the way this was done  reflects frugality, and not to produce a rested team on these long road trips.  

Did someone spill the Kool Aid?

Kalamazoo Game Recap:

-Kalamazoo was 3/4 on their PP - Since their streak of 29 straight penalty kills was broken in Ft Wayne, the Americans have yielded 5 power play goals on 11 attempts

-While fatigue may have been a factor in the Americans play, the K Wings were also coming off of a 3-in-3 and actually arrived home from Wheeling later than the Americans who arrived from Indy at 4:00 AM on Sunday morning.

-The Americans never led in the game.  They managed to close the gap to 3-2 at the end of the first, but fell behind 5-2 before Travis Brown closed out the scoring with just over 9 minutes remaining  in the game to make the final score 5-3.

General

-The Americans are on an 0/15 PP streak and did not score a PP goal on the four game road trip.  The last power play goal was on Oct 19 against Atlanta.  For the year the Americans are 2/33 (6.1%) on the power play

-The Americans .500 winning percentage ranks them 16th in the league, 10th in the Western Conference and 4th in the Mountain Division

-Allen has allowed a total of 296 shots on goal.  Their game average of 37.50 ranks next to last in the league

-With his 1 goal and 4 assists on this road trip, Chad Costello now leads the league in assists (9) and is second in points (11).

Last but not least, we would like to thank all of our readers for their comments and support while Barry was away.  Barry will take over the blog upon his return later this week.



Did you know - Forty year old David Weninger was the Allen EBUG in Indy. He had not played professional hockey since playing for the ECHL Dayton Bombers in the 99-00 season. In 2004 he was goaltending coach for coach Martinson's alma mater, St Cloud State University.