Losing Streak Snapped, Game Recap, Video Highlights, Coach's Comments, Mountain Division Remaining Schedule, 14 Goalies Below 2.50 GAA and More

 

The Allen Americans got the monkey off their back yesterday afternoon with a 4-1 victory over the Tahoe Knight Monsters. The Americans finished .500 for the weekend with a record of 1-1-1-0. Allen's defense and goalie play has been great recently giving up just eight goals in the last four game. The problem has been the offense which hadn't scored four goals in a game since the end of January. 

 

- The Americans were strong from the opening puck drop. The shot total was 11-3 when J.C Brassard scored the first and only goal of the opening period at the 5:36 mark. Patrick Polino threaded a perfect cross ice pass to Brassard who was charging in from the point and took the shot from the faceoff dot. The goalie partially stopped the puck, but it trickled in. Allen would never surrender the lead from that point forward.

 

- Allen increased its lead to 2-0 midway through the second period when Jay Powell, who was seeing his first action of the series, took a nifty pass from Kyle Crnkovic in the high slot and scored his first goal of the season. It looked like Allen would take a 2-0 lead into the second intermission until Tahoe's leading goal scorer, Simon Pinard, who is tied for #3 in the league with 26 goals, got the Knight Monsters on the scoreboard with just over a minute remaining in the period. 

 

- As the third period started with Allen leading 2-1 it was easy for doubt to creep in given the Americans had blown several third period leads during their 12 game losing streak. The back breaker goal came from Quinn Warmuth who picked up the puck inside the defensive blue line, skated unchallenged through the neutral and scored unassisted from the top of the faceoff circle. The goal was Quinn's second in the series and fourth of the season.

 

- J.C. Brassard ended the game as he started it scoring his second goal of the game and fourth of the season. Watch the replay of this empty net goal as Brassard shot the puck from inside the blue paint right in front of the goalie. It was a bullseye of a shot. You see those between period contests where you have to shoot from the red line to try to score into the net that has a slot just wider than the puck. Brassard would have made that shot and he did it from the length of the ice. 

 

- Here are the video highlights and it is worth using the 10 second rewind button multiple times to see the great passing, great shots, individual effort and bullseye empty net goal. Also take a look at the reaction of the Allen players who thought a goal had been scored. It got behind the goalie but did not cross the goal line. (20 second mark of the highlights). https://echl.com/videos/allen-americans-vs-tahoe-knight-monsters-mar-2-2025    

- Here are the game recaps from both teams:

Allen Americans: https://allenamericans.com/news/2025/03/americans-end-losing-streak 

Tahoe Knight Monsters: https://knightmonstershockey.com/news/2025/03/tahoe-falters-in-game-3-loses-4-1 

- I had a chance to check in with coach Ferguson after the game last night and again very early this morning. The team's wake-up call was something like 2:30 am Tahoe time. Here is what he had to say:

"Our compete level has been there for a long time, so it was great to see it finally pay off. Credit to our guys, they played the right way the whole weekend. Today we finally got rewarded."

"We have been preaching to our defensemen over and over again to get shots through and they have done a great job of that. And tonight they got rewarded."

"Richardson was great in net, it was great to get him a win."

"All in all we went .500 against the best home team in the Western Conference, which is a good feeling."

"We are excited to get back on home ice this week after two weeks away."

"We talked about finding that seam in their defense on Brassard's goal. It was nice to see it come to fruition."

"The guys were very relieved to end the losing streak!"

 

- I can't remember the last time Allen had a game where it scored multiple goals and all were scored by defensemen. The Americans only scored seven goals in the three games in Tahoe, but the Knight Monsters only scored six. Of the seven goals scored by the Americans, five were scored by defensmen. It is great to get four goals from defensmen, who have struggled to score all season. Prior to this series the defensemen had a total of 16 goals in 52 games. To get five goals in three games is outstanding. The flip side to all of the goals by defensemen is the forwards scored only two goals in the three games. As a group the forwards have scored only 20 goals in the last month (13 games) an average of just 1.54 goals per game. That will have to improve if Allen expects to win consistently the last 17 games of the season.  

 

- Allen did not score a power play goal in Tahoe going 0-3 in all three games. Tahoe scored power play goals in the first two games of the series which were the difference in the games. The Allen power play was ranked as high as #3 earlier in the season, but has fallen to #21 (18.1%) after this weekend. The penalty kill is ranked #17 and has fallen to 79.9% after going 2-9 (77.8%) in Tahoe. The Americans will have to improve on special teams to win consistently in the last 17 games of the season.

 

- Next up for the Americans is taking on a non division foe, the Jacksonville Icemen on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Not sure how the players feel about the series, but there is no doubt in my mind ownership wants to beat the "shining star" of the Zawyer empire more than they want to beat any other team. 

 

 

OTHER COMMENTS

- It is getting down to crunch time in the Mountain Division with teams having between 16-18 games remaining. Here are the standings by point percentage with games remaining for each team:

• .713 - Kansas City: 6 IDH, 3 UTA, 3 RC, 3 WIC, 3 GVL, 
  
• .625 - Tulsa: 4 ALN, 3 RC, 3 BLM, 2 UTA, 2 TAH, 1 WIC, 1 IDH
• .611 - Wichita: 3 KC, 3 RC, 3 TAH, 2 UTA, 2 IND, 1 ALN, 1 TUL, 1 IA, 1 CIN, 1 TOL
• .607 - Tahoe: 6 IDH, 3 RC, 3 WIC, 2 TUL, 2 UTA
• .583 - Idaho: 6 TAH, 6 KC, 5 ALN, 1 TUL
  
• .509 - Rapid City: 3 KC, 3 TUL, 3 TAH, 3 WIC,, 3 UTA, 3 IA
• .402 - Utah: 4 ALN, 3 KC, 3 RC, 2 TUL, 2 WIC, 2 TAH
• .345 - Allen: 5 IDH, 4 TUL, 4 UTA, 3 JAX,, 1 WIC  

• Idaho plays only four teams the rest of the season, The Steelheads fate will be decided by playing six games against the best team in the division (Kansas City), five games against the worst team in the division (Allen) and six games against Tahoe. 
• Wichita plays 10 different teams in its last 18 games with 14 of the games on the road.
• Tulsa probably has the easiest schedule of the group. No games against Kansas City and six games against Allen (4) and Utah (2). 

 

- The ECHL goal scoring champion is coming down to two players. Brandon Hawkins (TOL) and Cade Borchardt (KC) are tied with 32 goals. No other player has more the 26 goals. Hawkins has a commanding lead in points. He has 72 points, #2 is Michal Stinil (WIC) has 61 points. 

 

DID YOU KNOW: The ECHL Stats post today is about the many goalies this season with a GAA below 2.50. The last Allen Americans goalie to have a GAA under 2.50 was Jake Patterson in 2020-21. Jake played in 27 games that season, had a record of 18-6-2-0, a 2.31 GAA and a .927 save percentage. 

 

What a difference one season makes. Last season just two ECHL goalies finished with a GAA under 2.50. So far this season there are 14. Six of the 14 have GAA’s under 2.20. (minimum 1080 minutes played). Here are the top six in GAA:

 

1.92: Cam Johnson, Florida

2.03: Luke Cavallin, Trois Riviéres

2.04: Garin Bjorklund, South Carolina

2.13: Mark Sinclair, Bloomington

2.17: Jack LaFontaine, Kansas City

2.19: Justen Close, Jacksonville

 

Why the big difference?