It has been a while since the Allen Americans have had an early morning hockey game at home. School Day is back with a 10:00 am puck drop as the Americans take on the Kansas City Mavericks in the first of three games this week. After this morning the teams will play again on Friday and Saturday. Saturday night will include the 15th year anniversary alumni game and the retirement of Chad Costello's #13 jersey.
- Especially today, but also this entire series represents a big challenge for the Americans. It starts with the opponent. Here are the facts as I stated yesterday. The Mavericks are the best team in the ECHL (.783 points percentage), the best road team in the ECHL (24-2-2-1), the hottest team in the ECHL with an 11 game points streak (8-0-2-1) and they have owned the Americans in Allen (0-5-0-0). The Americans must put the stats aside and find a way to earn points this week. As if the Mavericks needed any incentive to play well, as they always seem to play their best when they play the Americans, a three game sweep in this series would be record setting. The all time ECHL record for road wins in a single season is 26 which has been accomplished five times. Kansas City needs two wins to tie the record and three to stand alone at the top of the heap.
- The other side of the equation in this series is quite the opposite of how the Mavericks are playing. Allen has lost five of its last six games and has once again been decimated with injuries. Here is the list with all but Crone suffering injuries in the last four games.
- Hank Crone
- Grant Hebert
- Easton Brodzinski
- Johnny Walker
- Bennett MacArthur
Crone, Brodzinski and Walker will not play in this series while Hebert and MacArthur are listed as day to day and will be a game time decision.
- Forward James Hardie, who was just acquired from Rapid City, is driving to Texas and will not play in the game this morning. He will see his first action for Allen on Friday.
- You will see a new player on the ice this morning as coach Costello has signed an amateur player who arrived in Allen yesterday. His name is Filip Forsmark. He is a 25 year old left shot forward who just finished his collegiate career at Merrimack College. Forsmark is listed as 5' 11" and 176 pounds. He is a native of Sweden who played junior hockey in the USHL prior to his college career. Here are his stats:
- USHL - 120 games played, 74 points (24G, 50A)
- NCAA - 123 games played, 74 points (26G, 48A)
Filip is pursuing a master's degree in communication and media with a minor in sports management.
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| Filip Forsmark |
- Allen is 3-8-0-1 against Kansas City this season with all of the wins coming in Kansas City. The 0-5-0-0 home record includes two recent losses (March 8, 9) when Allen lost 3-1 and 8-4.
- Allen's roster (excluding injured reserve) has three NHL/AHL contracted players (one from the affiliate), six rookies and one veteran. By comparison Kansas City has nine contracted players from its affiliate, seven rookies and no veterans.
- As you might imagine most stats heavily favor Kansas City. The Mavericks on average score a goal per game more then Allen and allow 1.1 less goals per game than the Americans. Here are the head to head stats in the 12 games these teams have played this season.
- Allen has been outscored 48-34.
- Allen has been outshot 447-313.
- Allen is 8-40 on the power play (20.0%)
- Kansas City is 12-64 on the power play (18.8%).
Note Kansas City has a lower power play percentage but four more power play goals because Allen takes so many penalties. The Mavericks have had 24 more power play opportunities than the Americans. Key number one for Allen this morning is staying out of the penalty box. It won't be easy when you consider Allen is #2 in the ECHL in penalty minutes (1083) while Kansas City is #27 with half the penalty minutes (561) of the Americans.
- Key number two is do not play from behind against Kansas City. When the Mavericks score first they are almost unbeatable. They have scored the first goal in more games than any other team in the league (62% of the games) and have a record when scoring first of 30-3-3-1 (.865). The Mavericks road record when leading after the first period is 11-1-0-0 and when leading after the second period the road record is 15-1-0-0.
- The third key today is managing the breakouts from the defensive zone and avoiding neutral zone turnovers. If Allen can do well in these two areas they will get more shots and reduce the shots allowed to Kansas City. To be successful Allen needs a simple boring game rather than a run and gun wide open affair. Allen rarely wins when it allows more than three goals in a game. The score in the three games the Americans have beaten the Mavericks this season have been 4-3, 4-1 and 4-2.
OTHER COMMENTS
- There are seven games on the ECHL schedule tonight. The only other Mountain Division game is Tulsa at Idaho. Here are the previews: https://echl.com/news/2024/03/echl-today-march-20
- Here is the press release the Allen Americans issued on the acquisition of James Hardie from Rapid City: https://allenamericans.com/news/2024/03/americans-add-depth-up-front
DID YOU KNOW: Chad Costello's #13 jersey will be retired on Saturday and one of the most enjoyable parts of these ceremonies is watching a player and his family as a video is played showing everyone congratulating him. These are usually emotional videos and I hear this one will be nine minutes long. Chad will join Riley Gill (#30) and Gary Steffes (#12) as the only Allen players to have their jerseys retired.
You could write a book about Chad's accomplishments in Allen, but for me the stat that sets him apart from any player that has ever played in the ECHL is this one.
In the 36 year history of the ECHL
the scoring champion has won the scoring
title by more than 20 points only six times.Three of the six are owned by Chad Costello. Here are the six seasons where the ECHL scoring champion had
at least twenty more points than the runner up.
45 points - 2014-2015 (Chad Costello)
43 points - 1992-1993 (Trevor Jobe)
35 points - 1989-1990 (Bill McDougall)
34 points - 2016-2017 (Chad Costello)
24 points - 1995-1996 (Hugo Belanger)
23 points - 2015-2016 (Chad Costello)
Could be a rough 3 games this week, but looking forward to celebrating some magnificent achievements by Coach Costello this Saturday. Would be fitting to get the W this weekend and build momentum, bridge the gap to Tulsa and Utah, and get these Americans into the post season.
ReplyDeleteIt’s going to be a 4 game losing streak
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