Allen Wins a Big One, Game Recap, Video Highlights, Steve Martinson's Comments, Playoff Battle Update, Cancer Awareness, Eric Roy Milestone and More

The Allen Americans defeated the Wichita Thunder 4-1 last night before a Wednesday night crowd of 3582 at the Allen Event Center (AEC). With the win Allen moved into sole possession of fourth place in the Mountain Division and within one point of third place Wichita.


- It was another slow start for the Americans who were outplayed in the first period. Thanks to goalie Jake Paterson the Thunder scored only one goal on 13 first period shots. The game turned around when Eric Roy sent one of his seeing eye wrist shots from the blue line into the net with 39 seconds left in the period. It was Allen's fifth shot on goal. After the late goal that tied the game 1-1 the Americans left the ice for the first intermission with all of the momentum despite being out shot 13-5.


- The Americans went on to win the second period (1-0) and the third period (2-0). It was a great performance in what coach Martinson called the most important game of the season. The revamped roster has added depth to the team and all three lines can put the puck in the net. The third line had two of the four goals and were all +2.


- The goal scorers for Allen were Eric Roy (14), Bryan Moore (19), Thomas Frazee (14) and Zach Pochiro (17). Check out all of the goals and some great saves by both goalies at ECHL Rewind: https://www.echl.com/


- Here is the game recap from the Allen Americans: https://allenamericans.com/americans-bounce-back-slow-first-period-beat-wichita-4-1/


- Here is the game recap issued by the Wichita Thunder: https://www.wichitathunder.com/news/press-release/wichita-ends-road-trip-with-loss-at-allen.html


- Here are the video highlights from Sporfie. Worth noting a couple of nice passes, Alex Guptill on the Roy goal and Jared Bethune on the Thomas Frazee goal.

STEVE MARTINSON'S PREGAME AND POST GAME COMMENTS

- Pregame interview with Kayla McLain:

- Post game interview with Kayla McLain:

- Coach Martinson's post game comments to the season ticket holders:

"We have to work on our starts. The way we started I was saying here we go again. We had a turnover on a line change that led to their goal but the Roy goal at the end of the first period was big for us."

"Bethune stepped up and made a really nice play on the third goal and Moore made a nice play on his goal. It was good to see that line get a couple of goals which turned out to be big."

"We had a good second period but in the third period we had some guys still cheating a little bit. We got in trouble on the penalty because we weren't in position to back check. We are a work in progress but it was a much better game tonight especially in the second period."

"We were more physical tonight and there were some good hits by some of the guys. Now we will get rested up tomorrow and then get ready for Colorado."

"I thought our power play was good in the second period even though we didn't score. We had a lot of shots and I liked that."

"In the first period we didn't come out with any flow, we didn't come out with any rush. It seemed like all we did was get the puck out of our zone, dump it in and change. We got caught in our zone a couple of times. In the second period it was all of a sudden a different team. We had flow, we were skating, our defense was moving their feet."

"Paterson was great in goal coming back from an injury and stopping 32 of 33 shots."



OTHER COMMENTS

- The battle for the final two playoff spots remains close. Wichita is in third place with 74 points but has only four games remaining. Allen is in fourth place with 73 points and five game remaining. Tulsa in in fifth place with 71 points and five games remaining. If you go by winning percentage Allen is in third place (.545), Wichita fourth place (.544) and Tulsa in fifth place (.530).


- Here is the remaining schedule for Allen, Wichita and Tulsa:

Allen  -   Colorado (H), Colorado (H), Wichita (A), Idaho (H), Idaho (H)

Wichita  -  Tulsa (H), Allen (H), Colorado (A), Colorado (A)

Tulsa  -  Wichita (A), Kansas City (A), Idaho (H), Rapid City (H), Rapid City (H)


-  Congrats to Jared Bethune who got his first two professional points last night with the only assist on the goals by Bryan Moore and Thomas Frazee.


- Olivier Archambault continues to impress everyone in Syracuse (AHL). He assisted on the first Crunch goal last night and scored the second one as his team beat Binghamton 5-1. Olivier has played in 22 games for Syracuse, has 15 points (9 goals 6 assists) and is +9. Archambault leads his team and the entire AHL in shooting percentage at 30.6%.


- The Allen Americans are sponsoring an "Americans Fight Cancer Weekend" on April 6th and 7th and will be wearing special purple jerseys featuring the names of those in the Americans family who have been affected by cancer. The jerseys will be auctioned and funds donated to UT Southwestern Simmons Cancer Center to fund future research. My understanding is these jerseys will be available by live auction following the game on Saturday April 7th. Here is the jersey with all of the names. I hope you can enlarge the view to see what are many familiar names to the Allen Americans family. I am also proud that my mom, Trixie Janssen, who battled lung cancer four times before succumbing to the disease age 76 is on the jersey. I have shared this before but my mom was born and raised in Ireland, was a nurse and met my dad, who was an Army medic, during World War II. After she retired she took a part time job as the first aide nurse for the Minnesota North Stars.

   

- Beckett Dougherty's name is on the Cancer Awareness jersey and he is probably the youngest at 10 months. A reminder the Allen Americans are having a fundraiser for Beckett at the game tomorrow.  There will be a table on the concourse where items will be auctioned and you can also make cash donations. If you haven't read the story about Beckett who is part of the Allen Americans family, his dad is a former player and his mom is a former sales representative, here is a link to the blog post from last week. http://allenamericansblog.blogspot.ru/2018/03/allen-vs-tulsa-game-preview-makowski.html 

If you are not attending the game tomorrow night and would like help with Beckett's fight against a rare form of Leukemia you can do so here: https://www.gofundme.com/beckettdougherty





DID YOU KNOW: Eric Roy's 14th goal of the season last night was his 100th professional point of which 96 have been in an Allen jersey. Eric is third all-time for the Americans in career points by a defenseman trailing Tyler Ludwig (172) and David Makowski (141). Eric is also number three in career goals by a defenseman with 41. Tyler Ludwig is number one with 51 goals and David Makowski is number two all-time with 43 goals.