The Allen Americans have played 60 games this season and only twice have they lost a game in regulation time when leading after the first period. Unfortunately both losses have come in two of Allen's last three games and against the two worst teams in the conference (by points percentage). Last night the Americans blew a 3-1 lead after the first period and lost to the Kansas City Mavericks 5-4 before a Wednesday night crowd of 1326 at the Cable Dahmer Arena.
- Kansas City scored the first goal of the game on its first shot of the game just 89 seconds after the opening puck drop. That should have been a heads up on what would be the final result. The Americans have a record against the Mavericks this season of 6-3 and in the three losses Kansas City scored the first goal of the game.
- After allowing the first goal of the game Allen came roaring back with three unanswered goals including one with nine seconds left in the first period. The Americans took a 3-1 lead into the first intermission and had the game well in hand. With a record of 19-1-2-1 when leading after the first period and the fact the Mavericks played in Wichita Tuesday night, lost 5-2 and had to travel overnight back to Kansas City all looked good for the Americans.
- What actually happened is Kansas City scored four straight goals including two in the second period and two more in the first half of the third period to take a 5-3 lead. Allen scored a power play goal at the 12:12 mark of the third period to close the gap to 5-4 but that is as close as they could get. Two penalties late in the period hampered Allen's ability to get the goal to tie the game.
- The loss spoiled a four point performance (2G, 2A) by rookie Brett Neuman and Les Lancaster's 20th goal of the season. Lancaster is just the fourth ECHL defenseman to score 20 goals in a season in the last 12 years and he still has 12 more regular season games to play.
- Goals scorers for Allen were Scott Conway (9), Brett Neumann (4,5) and Les Lancaster (20). For Conway it was his fourth goal in the last five games and his fifth straight game with a point. Lancaster has goals in five of the last seven games including three straight. Les has 10 points (5G, 5A) in the last seven games and is #7 in points with 51 (20G, 31A) among all ECHL players. I looked back 15 years and no defenseman has ever finished in the top 10 in scoring. Matt Register is the only player that came close when he finished #11 overall in scoring in 2017-18 with 65 points (17G, 48A).
- You can find some video highlights at this ECHL link which were obviously posted by Kansas City: https://www.echl.com/en/video/2021/5/allen-americans-vs-kansas-city-mavericks-may-12-2021-0lEKwE5d
COACH'S CORNER
"After we had the 3-1 lead going into the second period we had too many turnovers which led to breakaways."
"We still want to be aggressive but too many players were gambling, turned the puck over, were out of position and then took penalties by taking down guys from behind."
"In our last two losses we let teams come back from behind and in both games we had full possession of the puck turned it over and the game winning goal was scored."
"I say don't cheat with the lead and we cheat. Scoring seems to be more important than winning to some players. They make bad decisions and it usually to create more offense."
"Our rookies played better than some of the more experienced players last night when it came to turning over the puck and being out of position."
"We won't skate today but I will work on video clips to show to the players tomorrow."
"I am still working on improving the roster looking at all of the alternatives still available."
OTHER COMMENTS
- The Iowa Wild play their last game on Saturday against the Texas Stars. As AHL teams finish the season, players that are qualified for the ECHL playoffs (minimum 5 ECHL games played) could be sent to the ECHL. Turner Ottenbreit and Tyler Sheehy are the only players on the Iowa Wild roster that have played five games in Allen. Because Turner and Tyler are on AHL Standard Player Contracts (SPC) they will have to agree to being assigned to Allen after the end of the AHL season. I have heard podcasts and read articles recently that say many AHL players just want to go home after this strange AHL season and have no interest in going to ECHL teams. The other thing to remember is AHL players that come to the ECHL for the playoffs don't make their AHL salary because the AHL season is over, they only make the $525 per week allowed by the ECHL CBA. The bottom line is the movement of AHL players to the ECHL may be more of a trickle than the downpour many may expect.
- Two other sources for ECHL teams improve the roster are players that have just finished their junior/college careers and players in the AHL that are on a PTO (tryout contracts). My understanding of the rules is amateurs who sign ATO contracts don't need to play five ECHL games and players on PTO's in the AHL have to play five games in the ECHL but have until the end of the ECHL season to get in the five games.
- If you are on social media you may have seen memory photos from fans show up the last couple of days of the celebrations of the Allen CHL championships. Thought I would post the dates and scores for all of Allen's four championships. You can look for more memory photos next month celebrating the Kelly Cup championships. Here are the dates and scores when Allen won championships:
May 11, 2013 - A 4-3 OT win over Wichita in the CHL Presidents' Cup finals
May 10, 2014 - A 5-2 win over Denver in the CHL Presidents' Cup finals
June 14, 2015 - A 6-1 win over South Carolina in the Kelly Cup finals
June 9, 2016 - A 4-2 win over the Wheeling Nailers in the Kelly Cup finals
- Even though Texas had one of the most liberal attendance policies during the pandemic the Americans have had trouble selling out the pandemic limited attendance. The AEC limit was stated as 2150 at one point and that number has been reached just eight times in 32 home games. Allen has drawn 2000+ just 10 times this season, 31% of the games. Allen's average attendance for the 32 home dates is 1818 which is ranked #10 of the 14 teams playing this season. Average attendance varies from a high of 3321 (Florida) to a low of 983 (Wheeling).
- Wichita was idle last night but managed to extend its lead in the Western Conference standings because both Allen and Fort Wayne lost. The points percentages are now .672 for Wichita, .650 for Fort Wayne and .642 for Allen. The Americans need some help to gain ground this weekend because they play just once (KC on Saturday) while Fort Wayne place twice at home (Wheeling on Friday, Indy on Sunday) and Wichita plays three games on the road (Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Rapid City). Standing could look different come Sunday evening.
DID YOU KNOW: The ECHL stats post today shows just how good of a season Les Lancaster is having for the Allen Americans. It is amazing he wasn't given a chance in the AHL but that shows how strange this season has been.
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