Allen vs Rapid City Preview, A Case of CRS, Florida on Record Pace, Best Team Save Percentages and More

 

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. As usual I ate way too much. I always get a chuckle from this description of Thanksgiving by comedian Jim Gaffigan: "Thanksgiving, it's like we didn't even try to come up with a tradition. The tradition is we overeat. 'Hey, how about on Thanksgiving we just eat a lot?' 'But we do that everyday.' 'Okay, what if we eat a lot with people that annoy the hell out of us after three hours?"

- I don't have much to add for a preview of the game tonight between Allen and Rapid City more than the series preview in the blog on Wednesday.(https://allenamericansblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/allen-vs-rapid-city-series-preview.html). I will share that I had a case of CRS (can't remember sh*t) late yesterday afternoon while dealing with my food hangover. Some how I decided to ask coach Ferguson to send me the lineup card for the evening. He kindly refrained from calling me a "dipsh*t and merely responded "no game tonight" which was highly embarrassing to say the least. 

- The keys to the game tonight will be the usual:

• Score first - Allen scored first on Wednesday but still lost
  
• Don't play from behind
• A lead after the first or second period is huge
• Keep the shots close - Allen was outshot 35-21 on Wednesday
  
• Win the special teams battle
• Get good goaltending - The question of the day will be whether Marco Costantini will get the start in goal. I assume he will get his first start of the season tonight or tomorrow night. 

- One thing to watch for tonight is whether the Americans can improve on getting the puck into their offensive zone. Coach Ferguson had this to say after the loss on Wednesday:

"We struggled to break the puck out of our own zone, starting with the first pass from the defensemen and continuing up the wall with too many lost board battles."

"The struggles with getting the puck to our offensive zone resulted in too much time in our own end defending and more pucks on our net."

 

- Allen's special teams have been rock solid recently but the power play was blanked on Wednesday (0-2) and gave up a shorthanded goal. The penalty kill was 0-4.The Americans need to win the special teams battle tonight.

 

- Rapid City was able to shutdown Allen's big four (Asuchak, Brodzinski, Crnkovic, Watts) on Wednesday. How important is this group to team success? Here are the stats by percentage of the team totals with numbers is parenthesis. Here is what the big four have contributed:

• 100% of power play goals (9 of 9)
• 82% of power play assists (14 of 17)
  
• 72% of all goals (26 of 36)
• 65% of all assists (35 of 54)

I don't think this group has gone back to back games without scoring all season, so no doubt they will be a factor in the game tonight.

 

- Allen's leading goal scorers the last four games do not come from the top line. Easton Brodzinski has four goals and Brayden Guy has three.

- Here is the game preview with lots of detail issued by the Allen Americans: https://allenamericans.com/news/2024/11/game-day-preview-americans-look-to-even-the-series

- The referees tonight are the same as Wednesday. The referees will be #6 John Linder and #54 Scott Allan. They pretty much let the players play on Wednesday. Allen had two power play opportunities and Rapid City had four. Most of the penalties were stick penalties.

 

OTHER COMMENTS

- There are 13 games on the ECHL schedule tonight with all eight Mountain Division teams in action. Here is the ECHL Today with all of the previews: https://echl.com/news/2024/11/echl-today-nov-29

 

- Connor Ingram, the Utah HC goalie that was injured that resulted in Dylan Wells being recalled to Tucson was expected to be available today. However, according to reports he will not play this weekend and is expected to return on December 2. 

- Florida beat Fort Wayne last night on the road 5-4 in overtime. The Everblades have won eight of their last nine games and are the only ECHL team with a points percentage above .800. Florida's current point percentage of .813 would rank second all-time behind Idaho who set the record of .826 in 2022-23.

- Three ECHL teams remain undefeated when scoring first. Tulsa has scored first in 56% of its games and has a record of 9-0-0-0. Florida has scored first in 50% of its games and has a record of 8-0-0-0. Rapid City has scored first in just 13% of its game (2 of 16) and is 2-0-0-0 when scoring first.

DID YOU KNOW:

DID YOU KNOW: Is defense and goaltending better in 2024-25? Last season only nine ECHL teams had save percentages of .900 or more. Thus far this season there are 17 and five of them are above .920. The team’s current point percentage is in parenthesis:

 

.932 - Florida (.813)

.928 - South Carolina (.719)

.926 - Trois Rivières (.714)

.925 - Indy (.500)

.924 - Bloomington (.531)