I am headed out on a hunting trip this morning so a very early blog post. I wrote it last night so may not have all of the up to date stats and information.
You know the Allen Americans are having a tough day when the coach has to go on injured reserve. During practice on Wednesday, Chad Costello suffered cut just below his knee from a skate and ended up with a trip to the hospital. It was a pretty severe cut that went almost to the bone, but luckily the skate only cut muscle and nerves, no tendons. The cut was so deep Chad has to be very careful the next week to avoid breaking open the incision. I do not expect he will be able to coach from the bench tonight. He is listed as day to day in hockey speak. You can look for him watching from a suite tonight.
The Allen Americans schedule over the first month of the season is the toughest of any team in the ECHL. A total of 13 games with 11 of them against Idaho (5 games), Kansas City (4 games) and Atlanta (2). How good are these opponents?
- Atlanta is the only undefeated team left in the ECHL at 6-0.
- Idaho is 6-1 and hasn't lost a game since Allen beat them on opening night.
- Kansas City won it first seven games of the season.
The combined record of these three opponents is 19-3-0-0 which is a points percentage of .864.
- Allen has a record of 3-4-0-0 and will play Kansas City at the CUTX Event enter on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Americans will then travel to Idaho for three games next week on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. A difficult six game stretch against the top two teams in the Mountain Division. If the Americans can play .500 hockey over the next six games that would be a success.
- Allen made several roster moves on Thursday:
- Released defenseman Matt Brassard
- Added goalie Kevin Mandolese, assigned by Ottawa
- Added defenseman Justin Allen, traded from Norfolk
- Placed forward Brandon Yeamans on reserve
- Placed Forward Liam Finaly on injured reserve (effective 10/30)
- Here is the updated roster:
GOALIES
- #31 Mark Sinclair
- #34 Kevin Mandolese
- #35 Chase Perry (reserve)
DEFENSEMEN
- #2 Ty Farmer (injured reserve)
- #3 Ryan Gagnon (injured reserve)
- #4 Kris Myllari
- #5 Stanislav Demin
- #16 Bray Crowder
- #20 Eric Williams
- #22 Matthew Sredl
- #24 Dalton Skelly (injured reserve)
- #27 Justin Allen
- #52 Dalton Gally
FORWARDS
- #7 Colton Hargrove
- #9 Chad Butcher
- #11 Brandon Yeamans (reserve)
- #14 Jordan Ty-Fournier
- #15 Liam Finlay (injured reserve)
- #18 Easton Brodzinski
- #19 Brandon Puricelli
- #21 Matt Marcinew
- #26 Spencer Asuchak
- #29 Colby McAuley
- #32 Mikael Robidoux
- #77 Grant Hebert
- I had a chance to take a look at some of the stats from the Americans win in Kansas City on Tuesday. The coaches get a report from a software program most ECHL teams utilize. Here are a few stats that caught my eye:
- Shots on goal were 48-20, closer than the shots recorded during the game (52-17).
- Kansas City blocked 21 shots vs 11 for Allen.
- Allen won 54% of the faceoffs (35 of 65).
- Allen out hit the Mavericks 16-12
- Allen had more counter attacks, 19-12 which led to more quality chances.
- Kansas City was unbeatable at the start of the season winning its first seven games while allowing only 14 goals (2.00 per game). In the last two games, both losses, the Mavericks have surrendered 12 goals (6.00 per game).
- Keys to the game and this series will be good starts and special teams. The league-wide points percentage for teams that score first is .755. Kansas City has not lost a game when it scored the first goal. It will be important for Allen to score first and avoid playing from behind.
- It is a small sample size but comparing road vs home special team percentages are quite telling. Allen's home power play is scoreless (0-9) compared to Kansas City's road power play of 45.5% (5-11). Allen's home penalty kill is 55.6% (4-9) compared to the Maverick's road penalty kill percentage of 50% (2-4). It could be a wild series on special teams.
- When it comes to power play opportunities the odds favor Kansas City. The Mavericks are one of the least penalized teams in the ECHL, Allen is one of the most penalized teams. Here is a comparison;
- Average penalty minutes: Allen 18.57 vs KC 6.78
- Minor penalties: Allen 43 vs KC 23
- Allen has been on the penalty kill 33 times in seven games.
- Kansas City has been on the penalty kill just 20 times in nine games.
- I was talking to coach Gens about the large disparity in shots and he reminded me its is not the raw number of shots a team takes, it is the quality of the shots. Teams like Idaho, Tulsa and Kansas City throw a lot of pucks at the net, but many are low percentage shots from the perimeter. The number of grade A chances in Kansas City on Tuesday was very close. I decided to check out this theory in Allen's three wins this season, one each against Idaho, Tulsa and Kansas City. Allen was outshot by a wide margin in all three games but capitalized on a much higher percentage of chances. The Americans scored on 23.8% (15-63) of its shots. The three opponents scored on just 6.9% (10-145) of their shots. Something to watch this weekend if the shots are one-sided. How many grade A chances does each team get?
- There are 12 games on tap in the ECHL tonight. Here are the previews from ECHL Today: https://echl.com/news/2023/11/echl-today-nov-10
Whoever threw the beer cans on to the ice at the end of the third period should be banned. The team should make a public statement and Tommy Daniels should make a statement. Surely if he was watching the game he saw it. We don’t do that in Allen. -I’m embarrassed.
ReplyDelete-Bobby 226
DeleteEvery penalty basically being called a cross check all game long, our team’s inability to handle the puck in our own zone, the balls on Robi to fight a guy twice his size, our guys fighting back, Asuchack throwing his body around like he was 26 yo again, good fans that say ziggy zaggy oiy oiy oiy….wiped in two seconds for me. Because of the look on the KC player’s face when he brushed away the beer can on the ice, as he skated to congratulate his goalie…….. and then another flew. I yelled at the group who did it. They scurried out. Even Memphis Dave wouldn’t approve of this behavior.
This better get some attention. -Bobby 226