Tomorrow night (Saturday) is the Allen Americans annual Teddy Bear Toss game. I am writing another blog today all about the Teddy Bear Toss from its history to the records. Look for it being published later today.
- With 47 games remaining in the 2023-24 season you can't in really say the Allen game tonight against Rapid City is a must win, but it is very important when you consider the following:
- The Americans have the worst record in the ECHL at 8-16-1-0 (.340).
- Allen has lost four of the last five and six of the last seven games.
- Allen's home record is a league low of 1-7-0-0.
- Allen's opponent (Rapid City) is in fourth place in the division and is the team the Americans must catch to make the playoffs.
- If Allen had swept this three game series they would be tied with Rapid City in point percentage (.426), but if the Americans get swept the point percentages will be .315 (Allen) vs .519 (Rapid City).
- In game previews I usually talk about scoring first, leading after the first period, holding down shots allowed, winning the special teams battle and avoiding neutral zone turnovers just to name a few keys to victory. However, it doesn't matter how the Americans get in done they have to find a way to limit the goals allowed. The facts are Allen stands little chance of winning if they give up more than three goals in a game. Here is the score of Allen's games thus far in December, by wins and losses:
- WINS
- 4-1 vs Kansas City (12/15)
- 5-3 vs Utah (12/8)
- 3-2 vs Utah (12/1)
- LOSSES
- 10-5 vs Rapid City (12/20)
- 3-2 vs Kansas City (12/16)
- 7-3 vs Utah (12/9)
- 5-2 vs Utah (12/6)
- 4-3 vs Wichita (12/2)
- Allen's December record is 3-5-0-0. When allowing fewer than four goals the record is 3-1-0-0. When allowing four or more goals the December record is 0-4-0-0. Team defense will be the key to wining the final two games in this series with Rapid City. As coach Costello has said several times this season, when winning becomes more important than scoring the Americans will be a good team.
- Allen will enter the game tonight with more players available than it has had in a long time. The four players that were out on Wednesday with food poisoning will be available. The injured reserve list is down to eight players with the activation of defensemen Ryan Gagnon and Ty Farmer. Allen still has more players on IR than any other team in the league. Rapid City has one player on injured reserve.
- Rapid had just one NHL/AHL contracted player assigned but got a second one assigned yesterday. The Rush added goalie Connor Murphy from Calgary (AHL) yesterday. Both of the Rush assigned players are goalies. Allen also has two contracted goalies (Meriläinen & Sinclair) but also has three forwards (Crone, Murray, MacArthur).
- After having two referees for the game on Wednesday it will be back to a one referee system tonight. The referee scheduled tonight is #15 Chad Ingalls who was one of the two referees on Wednesday.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Kris Myllari continues to lead all ECHL players in power play assists (13) and is tied for the lead in power play points (15). Colby McAuley is tied for second in power play goals (7). Allen's power play has been strong all season, currently ranked #7 at 24.7%. The Americans have scored 23 power play goals plus three shorthanded goals. That represents a third of the goals Allen has scored this season.
- Allen's team shooting percentage is 11.3%. If there is a player that should shoot more it is Colby McAuley who leads the team in goals (14) and has a shooting percentage of 21.2%.
- Here is some hockey trivia I found when reading the "DID YOU KNOW" section of the blog post from December 28, 2014 when doing some research this morning. FYI, Allen's team plus/minus today, nine years later, is -191.
- The Allen Americans are +164 in plus/minus as a team which leads the ECHL. The NHL record for plus/minus in a single season by a player is held by Bobby Orr who was an unbelievable +124 in 1970-71.
- When former Allen player Adam Pineault (2011-13) was drafted in the second round (#46 overall) in the 2004 NHL draft his agent was Bobby Orr.
- It is another big slate of games in the ECHL tonight with 24 of 28 teams in action. Here is the ECHL Today with all of the previews: https://echl.com/news/2023/12/echl-today-dec-22
DID YOU KNOW: I had several questions about possible suspensions after the fights with 20 seconds remaining in the Allen vs Rapid City game on Wednesday. The rule that calls for an automatic suspension for fighting in the last five minutes of a game is when a player is called for instigating or being the aggressor. The four 10 minutes misconduct penalties on Wednesday were called for "continuing altercation" which doesn't come with the automatic suspension. Note in the rule below there is even an out when an automatic suspension is given. Here is the ECHL Stats post for today:
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