Watched the entire Allen practice yesterday, talked to the coaches and came away with so many notes and thoughts I decided to dedicate the blog this morning to practice.
- My first impression as I walked into the rink was who are all the extra players? The ice was full of players and coaches. Coach Martinson told me later it was the first practice all season he had eight defensemen and four lines for drills.
- As a recap all four players that were on COVID protocol are now cleared and were at practice. That means the return of Branden Troock and Eric Roy to the lineup after missing the last six games.
- There were three goalies at practice with the return of Antoine Bibeau who has been sidelined since being injured in Rapid City on November 19. Bibeau joins rookies Frank Marotte and Hayden Lavigne to give Allen three healthy goalies.
- The good news is Bibeau is back and looked good in practice. The bad news is Allen fans will have to wait some time to see Bibeau play in a home game. Antoine has played in three games for Allen between stints back and forth to Charlotte and all three games have been on the road. Coach Martinson told me after practice Bibeau is headed back to Charlotte because of an injury in Seattle.
- I have explained this before but it might be worthwhile doing it again since this will be the third time Bibeau has been assigned to Allen only to be recalled after a few days. Seattle has four goalies in the system, fewer than when its AHL team (Coachella Valley Firebirds) starts playing in Palm Desert, California next season. Here are the four goalies in the Seattle system with games played this season by league:
1. Phillip Grubauer - 18 games (NHL)
2. Chris Driedger - 5 games (NHL)
3. Joey Daccord - 2 games (NHL), 8 games (AHL)
4. Antoine Bibeau - 3 games (AHL), 3 games (ECHL)
The plan for the season is to have the top two goalies in Seattle, Joey Daccord in Charlotte (who has a double affiliation) and Antoine Bibeau assigned to Allen. The upside of this plan is Allen gets a goalie with outstanding credentials who has been a success at the AHL level. Under most affiliations an ECHL team would be assigned the 5th or 6th goalie on the depth chart. The downside with Bibeau is every time one of the other three goalies is injured, he will be recalled to Charlotte. What happened this weekend is Chris Driedger was injured so Seattle brought in Daccord from Charlotte and now Bibeau will head to Charlotte.
The latest on the Driedger injury is he was placed on Seattle's injured reserve yesterday with a lower body injury and will miss the Kraken's next three games at a minimum with no specific time frame for his return. The dominoes mean Daccord takes over as the #2 netminder for the Kraken and Bibeau takes over as the #2 netminder for the Checkers.
- Jack Combs has also been cleared to play and was a full participant at practice so the only player still out injured is JD Dudek who will not be available for the game on Sunday.
- With the return of Combs and Troock and the recent addition of Gavin Gould and Zach Hall the Americans will have a different look on Sunday on the top two lines. Based on practice look for the line of Costello-Asuchak-Gould to stay intact. They accounted for 29 points (9G, 20A) in the just completed six game road trip. They are an offensive juggernaut and continue to shine in practice. A lot of the practice yesterday was focused on defense and that is an area this group was working hard on from what I observed. The line had 29 points in the six game road trip but ended with a plus/minus of -9.
- The new line in practice was Combs-Hall-Troock which could also be a big offensive line on Sunday. It is clear Allen fans will see a team with more speed, more depth and three lines capable of scoring When the Americans meet Rapid City on Sunday.
- I mentioned in addition to all the players on the ice for practice there were three coaches. Because of his 26 years of coaching experience and 10 championships, Steve Martinson has always been able to find local coaches to help out. Not many ECHL teams can say they have a skating coach, a goalie coach and an assistant coach with five years experience as a head coach in the ECHL, who made the playoffs in all five seasons. Here are the unsung heroes who help out with the Americans.
Kevin Colley - Kevin was an assistant coach in Allen in 2015-16 when the Americans won the Kelly Cup and is back helping Steve Martinson this season. Kevin played in 214 AHL games and 16 NHL games with the New York Islanders during his playing career. He won the Kelly Cup in 2003 playing for Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies and was selected as the playoff MVP scoring 20 points in 14 games (7G, 13A). Kevin was the head coach of the Utah Grizzlies for five seasons (2008-13) and never missed the playoffs. Kevin grew up with hockey. His dad (Tom) recently passed away and was known as "Mr Nighthawk" after playing seven of his eight pro seasons for the New Haven Nighthawks (AHL). Tom Colley holds the Nighthawks franchise records for games played (534), goals (204), assists (281) and points (485). His #9 was retired by the Nighthawks. I learned from Kevin after practice his mom was a a champion figure skater so you can see his family was at the rink a lot when he was a kid and he grew up as a rink rat.
Luke Chilcott -Luke is the son of two skating coaches and has been the Allen Americans skating coach since 2015. Luke as well as his parents were figure skating champions in Great Britain. Luke represented Great Britian in the world figure skating championships in 2011-12. After an injury in 2012 he created Chilcott Skating Mechanics (CSM) and has worked with the NHL (San Jose Sharks) and AHL (San Jose Barracuda, Texas Stars) teams. Watching Luke skate and work with the Americans at practice is a fun experience for sure.
Chris Johansen - Chris has been the goalie coach for the Americans since 2017. He is Director of Goalie Development for the McKinney North Stars Hockey Club which has nine travel hockey teams in all age groups. Chris does individualized training and has worked with goalies from the AHL, ECHL, NCAA and youth goalies.
- A big thanks to these coaches who help out Steve Martinson and the Allen Americans players. It is a great tool for general manager Steve Martinson to have in his tool box when recruiting and developing players.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Even though the Americans have been idle they have climbed out of the cellar in the Mountain Division thanks to a Kansas City loss on Tuesday. The Mavericks have a .406 points percentage compared to Allen at .433. Rapid City is just ahead of Allen in points percentage (.500) and play in Tulsa tonight and Friday before playing the Americans on Sunday. It is possible with a regulation win against the Rush on Sunday the Americans could move into fifth place in the standings after this weekend.
- Allen fans who attend the game on Sunday will see a team that is smaller and quicker than the last home game on November 14. Playing their first home game will be Gavin Gould who is 5'8" and weighs 155, Tyler Poulsen who is 5'7' to 5'9" and 161 to 175 depending on which data base you use and Zach Hall who is 5'11" 185 pounds. They all bring a lot of energy to the ice.
- Spencer Asuchak has the second longest (tied) goals streak in the ECHL this season at four games and the second longest (tied) points streak at seven games.
Excited to have a full roster again plus see how the lines work.
ReplyDeleteBarry - didn't Charlette recall Evan Fitzpatrick from Greenville this week? Looks to me they have 3 goalies on their roster after the Daccord call up
ReplyDeleteThanks for your question. The Charlotte roster shows three goalies but one of them is injured. If you looked at the box score last night Fitzpatrick started (won) and Bibeau was the back. It doesn't always hold true but in general if Charlotte loses a Seattle goalie (Daccord) they will replace him with Bibeau. If they lose a Florida goalie they will call up Fitzpatrick.
DeleteThank you Barry - appreciate the info!
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