Allen vs Kansas City Preview, Viral Video, More Martinson Records, Recall/Reassignment and Trade Deadlines Arrive and More

Tonight could be a historic game for Allen Americans fans as coach Steve Martinson goes for his 1000th win in his 23 year coaching career. It is ironic that after such an illustrious career with 10 championships a win tonight is important not only because it is the 1000th for Martinson but also because the Americans are trying to avoid having the worst record in the ECHL.


- It is appropriate this potentially historic game is against a team that Allen has battled from day one as a franchise. The Kansas City Mavericks were a new franchise back in 2009-10 just like the Americans and a rivalry was born. Allen has clearly had more success on the ice with four championships compared to none for the Mavericks.


- Anyway you look at this season Kansas City has been the better team. The overall records are 29-23-3-1 for the Mavericks and 21-34-4-2 for the Americans. Allen's record against Kansas City this season is 1-7-0-0. The Americans lone win came the last time the Mavericks visited the Allen Event Center (AEC) on January 5. Allen gave up the first goal of the game and the Mavericks were 2-4 on the power play but three unanswered goals (including a Chase Lang shorthanded goal) by the Americans gave them a 5-3 victory.


- The game tonight will be the ninth of 10 times these teams will meet this season. They will play again on Friday night. Here are the head to head stats in the first eight games:

Goals -  Mavericks lead 34-19
Shots - Mavericks lead 262-240
Power Play - Kansas City is 13-44 (29.5%). Allen is 3-34 (8.8%)
Penalties - Allen has 56 penalties for 174 minutes, Kansas City has 44 penalties for 107 minutes


- The stat that stands out above is the power play. Kansas City has had 10 more power play opportunities and they have torched the Americans with a 29.5% power play percentage. In the eight previous games the Mavericks had three power play goals once, two power play goals four times and one power play goal twice. The only game Allen held Kansas City scoreless on the power play was the game the Americans won.


- Allen has a single power play goal in three of the head to head games and have been held scoreless in the other five for a meager power play percentage of 8.8%. A huge key tonight for Allen will be to win the special teams battle. That means staying out of the penalty box and capitalizing on the power play opportunities. The Americans should be able score on the power play given the fact Kansas City has the worst road penalty kill in the ECHL at 74.3%.


- Head to head Kansas City has averaged 4.25 goals per game while Allen has averaged only 2.38 goals per game. Allen will be missing two key offensive weapons with Alex Breton and Riley Bourbonnais on loan to AHL teams. Allen will not win this game giving up four or five goals.


- Good news for Allen is Joel Chouinard will be back in the lineup for the first time since being injured on February 5. Etienne Boutet will not be available after suffering an upper body injury in Tulsa on Saturday.


- Based on what I observed at practice yesterday I am guessing Lukas Hafner will get the start in goal tonight.


- Kansas City will have their second leading scorer, Jared VanWormer back in the lineup after he was returned yesterday from a stint in the AHL. However, the Mavericks are still missing their leading points per game player, Mark Cooper and top defenseman Cliff Watson who are on loan to AHL teams.


- If you look at recent games rather than head to head games Allen has actually out performed Kansas City. The Americans have won five of their last seven games outscoring their opponents 28-23. The Mavericks have won only three of their last seven games and have been outscored in those seven games 23-18.


- Another stat working in Allen's favor is Kansas City has a horrible road record. The Mavericks are almost unbeatable at home (22-9-1-0) but have the fewest road wins of any team in the ECHL (7-14-2-1). Allen's home record is 11-15-1-0 but five of the 11 wins have come in the last six home games.


- Allen has scored first in only 24 of 61 games and have one of the worst winning percentages (.646) when they do score first with a record of 13-6-4-1. Kansas City has scored first in 24 of 56 games and has one of the best winning percentages (.833) when scoring first with a record of 19-3-2-0. Leaguewide the team that scores first wins almost 75% of the time.


- Allen has the worst home record in the ECHL when leading after the first period (3-5-1-0) but also has the most home wins when trailing after the first period (5-9-0-0). On the road Kansas City has a record of 3-1-1-0 when leading after the first period but when they trail after the first period their record is 1-9-0-1. Not sure what all these stats mean but as usual if Allen scores first and takes a lead into the first intermission that should win the game.


- Players to watch tonight for Allen are Spencer Asuchak who has four goals against Kansas City and Zach Pochiro who has three goals and eight points against the Mavericks. Zach will also be looking to extend his six game goal scoring streak which is currently the longest in the ECHL. The Mavericks leader against Allen in points (11) is Rocco Carzo and in goals is Carzo and David Dziurzynski with five each.


- The referee scheduled tonight is Andrew Bruggeman (#25). The linesmen will be Aaron Schacht (#31) and Michael Miggans (#47).


OTHER COMMENTS


- You may have seen the video that went viral of seven and eight year old hockey players in Nova Scotia having trouble navigating the deep drop coming on the ice.  Here is the back story on how and why this happened and how the video went viral. The video clip is included in the story and if you haven't seen it you must watch. If you have seen the video I challenge you to watch it again without laughing just as much as the first time you saw it. https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/viral-video-shows-tiny-n-s-hockey-players-tumbling-adorably-onto-ice-1.4316744


- There are nine games around the ECHL tonight and all Mountain Division teams with the exception of Tulsa are in action. In addition to Kansas City at Allen, Utah is at Rapid City and Wichita is at Idaho. A perfect match up of bottom teams (Wichita, Rapid City, Allen) against top teams (Idaho, Utah, Kansas City).


- Who's hot and who's not: The Maine Mariners and Cincinnati Cyclone have won eight of their last 10 games. The South Carolina Stingrays have won just one of their last 10 games.


- Don't forget there are two critical dates today and tomorrow. The recall/reassignment deadline is tonight at 11:59 local time. If a NHL/AHL contracted player is in the ECHL and the NHL/AHL teams wants to move them from one ECHL team to another it must be done by 11:59 tonight. The ECHL trade deadline is tomorrow at 3:00 pm EST.  It is possible Allen will be invloved in both of these deadlines. Stay tuned.


- Here is the Allen Americans Weekly where Tommy Daniels recaps the games from last week, looks ahead to the games this week and lists the team leaders and other facts: https://allenamericans.com/allen-americans-weekly-17/


DID YOU KNOW: In his second year as a head coach (1995-97) Steve Martinson won his second championship with the San Diego Gulls.  That team had four 100 point scorers and had 400 goals in 64 games for an average of 6.25 goals per game. It was by far the most goals a Martinson team ever scored in a season. The fewest goals a Martinson team has ever scored will be this season unless the Americans go on a scoring binge the last 11 games. Martinson has never had a team average below 3.00 goals per game. Allen is currently averaging 2.90 goals per game and will have to average 3.54 goals per game in the last 11 games to get to an average of 3.00 goals per game.