Allen Wins 5-4, Game Recap, Video Highlights, Martinson Comments, Fastest Two Goals Ever, 20 Point and 30 Point Players, Plus an All Goalie Game Comes to CUTX

 

The Allen Americans beat the Rapid City Rush 5-4 last night, snapping a three-game losing streak and moving into third place in the Mountain Division standings (by points percentage). Allen improved its home record to 11-4-1-0 (.719). That is the second-best home points percentage in the division behind Kansas City (.727), and the fifth-best in the league. To put this home record turnaround in perspective, last season Allen won 7 home games all season and finished with a home record of 7-24-4-1 (.264), the worst in the league by a long shot (2nd-worst was .389). The Americans have won 11 of their last 13 home games.

 

- It wasn't a good start for the Americans. They had a couple of great chances early in the game, but for the 21st time in 39 games, they gave up the first goal.  Allen's record when giving up the first goal is 8-12-1-0 (.404). When the Americans score the first goal, their record is 13-2-3-0 (.806).

 

- Allen scored late in the first-period (18:00) to tie the score 1-1 on Harrison Blaisdell's 12th goal of the season. The Americans took a 2-1 lead at the 6:36 mark of the second period on a goal by Jake Chiasson, who was playing in his first game since being assigned by Belleville on Wednesday.

 

- It looked like Allen would take a 2-1 lead into the second intermission, and they are money when that happens (14-0-1-0), but a defensive breakdown led to a late goal (18:18) and a 2-2 tie score at the second intermission. After two periods, Allen had outshot Rapid City 33-19, had many more grade A chances, but the score was tied.

 

- Allen had a power play 23 seconds into the third period and converted on Danny Katic's 19th goal of the season and seventh power play goal. Katic's goals per game average (.655) would have him tied for the league lead in goals (25) if he had been in Allen all season. He missed 10 games when he was called up to Belleville. Despite missing 10 games, Danny is #6 in the ECHL in goals. 

 

- The Americans took a 4-2 lead at 10:49 of the third period on Hank Crone's 11th goal of the season. It was a goal scorer's goal, roofing the puck from in close. Crone's goal started a one-minute of madness; it was actually 50 seconds of madness. 39 seconds after Crone's goal, Rapid City cut the score to 4-3, and 11 seconds later, Allen had its two-goal lead back. Ty Prefontaine threw the puck in front of the goal, and it ended up in the net to give Allen a 5-3 lead. It looked like Spencer Asuchak deflected the puck into the net and was initially given credit for the goal, but it was changed to an unassisted goal by Prefontaine. Ty has five goals in 13 games since joining the Americans and is now tied with Sedley for the team lead among defensemen.

 

- The drama wasn't over as Rapid City pulled its goalie and scored with 71 seconds remaining in the game to cut the score to 5-4. The Rush scored right after the Americans missed a 2-on-1 empty-net goal. The final drama was an Allen penalty with 9.2 seconds remaining in the game. Allen was able to clear the puck off the faceoff to preserve the win.      

 

- Here are the game recaps from both teams and the video highlights:

• Allen Americans: https://allenamericans.com/news/2026/01/news-americans-beat-the-rush-on-top-gun-night
• Rapid City Rush: https://rapidcityrush.com/news/2026/01/game-recap-rush-fall-one-short-in-back-and-forth-game-with-allen  
• Video Highlights: https://echl.com/videos/rapid-city-rush-vs-allen-americans-jan-30-2026  

 

-  Allen was able to take advantage of its superior special teams last night. Allen has the #4 power play and #5 penalty kill in the league. Rapid City is ranked #29 in power play and penalty kill percentage. Allen was 1-5 on the power play and killed all four of Rapid City's power play opportunities. The Americans haven't given up a power play goal to Rapid City since the first time they played on October 29, and that was an overtime power play goal. Allen has now gone six games without giving up a power-play goal to the Rush. The Americans have killed 24 of 25 chances for a penalty kill percentage of 96%. Allen was 1-5 on the power play last night and in the seven games against Rapid City are 5-28 (17.9%). 

 

- The keys to the game tonight don't change. Get off to a good start, don't play from behind, win the special teams battle, and play better defensively. 

 

- Here is the lineup tonight. Coach Martinson has added some toughness to the lineup. Simmons-Fischer replaces Spitserov on the fourth line. On the blueline, Warmuth and Greco are in; Decker and Costantini are healthy scratches. Parsons gets the start in goal.  

Forwards

67 Crone - 7 Hargrove - 92 McAuley

26 Asuchak - 29 Watts - 18 Blaisdell 

9 Katic- 91 Gildon - 11 Chiasson

19 Maxwell - 14 Gursoy - 6 Simmons-Fischer

 

Defense

86 Anania - 40 Touré

8 Prefontaine - 23 Sedley

2 Warmuth - 3 Greco

 

Goalies

31 Parsons

32 Tendeck (backup) 

 

 

- The game tonight will be a one-referee game again. The same referee as last night, Emile Charron (#43), will call the game. The linesmen will be Will Anderson (#92) and Trent Williams (#48). FYI, I regularly get asked about linesman Daniel Barnes (former Allen player), who was injured at the end of last season and needed surgery and is still recovering. I heard recently that he will be back in the near future.     

 

COACH'S COMMENTS

- You have heard me say many times that Steve Martinson's post-game chat with STM's (season ticket members) can only be appreciated in person. Last night was a classic. Thirty minutes of game analysis, roster news, stories, and humor about the team, life, children, and more, much of which is not appropriate for the blog. Here is some of what Martinson had to say:

"Getting the five goals tonight was nice, but we should have beaten them 6-3. We shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times at the end of the game."

"Hargrove's line was putting on a clinic, but not scoring. They would just miss, or their goalie was coming up with big saves, or they hit the pipe." 

"We are scoring a lot of goals, and that is a good thing, and we are getting scoring from three different lines, but we still need to get better defensively."

"It was great to see Chiasson score in his first game, and Touré was like a spider on the ice."

"We are back on a winning track, and we have a bunch of games at home we have to win." 

"There is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes right now, and it is all good stuff. I am trying to get players for down the stretch and the playoffs."

"I feel we have enough offense here to make it to the finals in the playoffs; we just have to have better team defense to make it to the finals."  

  

 

OTHER COMMENTS

- The two goals in 10 seconds in the game last night were not the fastest two goals by both teams in Allen history. The Americans are part of the all-time ECHL record for fastest two goals by both teams. On November 10, 2018, playing Kansas City at home, two goals were scored in three seconds. To be fair, these were end-of-game goals. After spotting Kansas City a 4-0 lead, the Americans came back in the third period. Spencer Asuchak scored an extra attacker goal to cut the score to 4-3 with 17 seconds remaining in the game. With the Allen goalie pulled, Kansas City's Mark Cooper scored on the faceoff three seconds later.   

 

- This keeps working, so here we go again. Players averaging a point per game over the last 11 games:

• 18 points (4G, 14A) - Hargrove  
• 16 points (4G, 12A) - Crone   
• 14 points (5G, 9A) - Watts      
• 14 points (3G, 11A) - Sedley     
• 12 points (2G, 10A) - Blaisdell  
• 11 points (9G, 2A) - Katic 

 

- Yesterday, I included the number of players with 20 or more points for each team in the Mountain Division. Allen led the pack with 10. Allen actually has more 20+ point players than any team in the league (see below). Allen has 10 players with 20+ points, but five of the 10 have 30+ points. Here are the numbers of players with 30 or more points for each Mountain Division team:

• 6: Allen
• 4: Kansas City 
• 3: Tahoe
• 3: Wichita 
• 2: Idaho 
• 2: Rapid City
• 2: Utah 
• 0: Tulsa 

 

- Sam Sedley had an assist last night to continue his streak, which has reached nine straight games with a point. Sam also has assists in seven straight home games. Danny Katic has points in eight straight home games.

 

- An all-goalie game will take place before the Allen Americans game on March 14. Like the police vs fire game and college games, Allen Americans ticket holders can come early and watch this unique game, which is part of a two-day event. Here are the details. Thanks to the Schwitzgebels for sharing this: https://www.localprofile.com/lifestyle/goalies-only-a-new-kind-of-hockey-hits-allen-11806136 

 

DID YOU KNOW: Here are the number of players with 20 or more points for each ECHL team. Teams currently in playoff positions (by points percentage) are marked with an asterisk:

 

10: ALN*

9: TAH*

8: KC*, WOR

7: ATL*, FW*, NOR, REA*

6: BLM*, FLA*, SC*, UTA

5: CIN, IDH*, JAX, KAL, MNE*, ORL, RC, TOL*, WIC

4: SAV*, WHL*

3: GVL, IA, TR

2: ADK*, GSO, IND*, TUL