I won't dwell on all of the details as I know I am preaching to the choir to most of you but after four days of cold, snow, no internet, no TV, limited power, a frozen pipe and water rationing I have got internet service back this morning. Thanks to all of you that have reached out after several days of no blog to see if everything was okay.
- Then to add insult to injury the two home games scheduled with Kansas City this weekend have been postponed because of the ongoing winter storm complications. A wise choice to not use the limited electricity and water resources on hockey games. What it means for the Americans is a lot road games with few home games. As the schedule stands now between January 1 and March 14 Allen will have 20 road games and four home games. Allen has 28 home games yet to play if they get in all 36 planned. There will be a heavy dose of home games late in the season.
- To say it has been an eventful week since the last blog post would be a gross understatement. My last post was after game one in Kansas City when I wrote, "In one of the most complete games of the season Allen earned its second road shutout last night by beating the Kansas City Mavericks 3-0. Allen allowed the Mavericks just 16 shots on goal and only two in the third period.
- The very next period, first period of game two, the Americans gave up 23 shots, a league high, were out shot 42-29, gave up two power play goals and lost 4-2. Game three wasn't much better as Allen was out shot 14-4 in the first period and lost the game 31-23.
- If losing back to back games wasn't enough the shorthanded Americans had two more injuries to add to Jesse Mychan who didn't make the trip to Kansas City. Then defensemen Matt Register and Phil Beaulieu, who are under contract with the Iowa Wild were recalled. Iowa played with five defensemen in their lone game last weekend (Saturday) and did Allen a favor by not recalling Register and Beaulieu until after the three games Allen played in Kansas City. Everyone was aware these two defenseman were being recalled after the Kansas City series.
- When I talked to coach Martinson on Tuesday his was down to 12 healthy skaters. The good news is yesterday Martinson was able to get five players assigned by San Jose. The plan was to have players assigned on February 22 when San Jose is moving from Tucson, where they had training camp and started the season, back to San Jose. When Allen ended up being short players and in need of help San Jose stepped up by agreeing to assign players early. The Barracuda were in Austin to play the Texas Stars on Tuesday but that game was postponed. These five players are now in Allen and would have been available had the games this weekend not been postponed. Instead they will see their first action with the Americans on the road trip to Greenville (February 25,26,27). The five players assigned by San Jose are forwards Joe Garreffa, Kyle Topping, Krystop Hrabik, Steen Pasichnuk and defenseman Chaz Reddekopp. I will have more details about the players in the blog tomorrow.
- I know coach Martinson was looking forward to and very much wanted to play Kansas City this weekend with a full lineup. One benefit of the postponement is it will allow some injured players to get healthy.
- The Americans have already used 31 different players this season and only eight have played 20 or more of Allen's 23 games. Ten players have played 10 or fewer games with the Americans. All teams at the ECHL level deal with changing rosters with loans, call ups and injuries but Allen is in a rough stretch right now.
- Indy beat Fort Wayne last night 4-1 and continues to be the best team in the ECHL. The Fuel have a record of 16-3-1-0 and their points percentage is .825 which is on record pace. Only one team in ECHL history has finished the regular season with a points percentage above .800. The 2001-02 Louisiana IceGators finished at .806. but lost in the first round of the playoffs.
- In the Western Conference Wichita leads with a .711 points percentage followed by Allen (.674) and Utah (.614). The top three are followed by Tulsa (.479). Kansas City (.477), Rapid City (.375) and Fort Wayne (.333). Fort Wayne has only played three games and has a record of 0-1-1-1.
- Even with five postponed home games Allen has played more games (23) than any team in the league except Tulsa who has played 24 games.
DID YOU KNOW: After two losses to Kansas City last weekend the Americans points percentage dipped to .674, the lowest since early in the season. A good time to remember when Allen won its second Kelly Cup the regular season points percentage was .618. Here is Allen's regular season points percentage for each season since joining the ECHL:
.710 2019-20
.389 2018-19
.542 2017-18
.722 2016-17
.618 2015-16*
.736 2014-15*
*won Kelly Cup championship
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