Coaches Post Game Comments, Duck Humor Goes To Mallards, Game Recap

About all you can say about the Allen Americans 4-2 loss to the Quad City Mallards last night is if you live by the "duck" humor you die by the "duck" humor. Saw everything from "flock flying high" to "the bird got the best of the cook tonight" to "the road to the cup passes through the marsh" to "the duck stops here" to "shut the duck up" to "flock you Allen."

Quad City dismissed all of the talk about they were too tired to beat a well rested Americans team on their home ice. They let all of the talk roll off of them like water off a ducks back. Okay, enough of the duck references. Quad City played like they were the team that had time off and were well rested as they jumped on the Americans 2-0 before Allen tied the score 2-2 halfway through the second period on goals by Bruce Graham and Anthony Maiani. It was the last time Allen would score as less than 48 hours after scoring the series-winning goal against Rapid City, Mallard rookie Thomas Frazee scored the game-winning goal at the 13-minute, 24-second mark of the second period, less than five minutes after the Americans had overcome a two-goal deficit to tie the game. Jordan Mayer scored a third period goal to secure the victory for the Mallards with a tip in. "The team played well and we got timely goals," coach Terry Ruskowski said. "That fourth goal, that tip in by Mayer was awesome and then Allen put the pressure on us and we hung on."

 Game two of the series is tomorrow (Sunday) with puck drop at 5:05 pm. Allen will have to have a much better effort all the way around to come out of the weekend with a split. You can be assured the motivation will be there for this Americans team that is known for bending but not breaking.

COACHES POST GAME COMMENTS:

- Obviously it was not a good start. We turned the puck over way too many times and our forecheck was not effective at all. When we made mistakes the puck ended up in our net.

- On offense we didn't capitalize on our opportunities. We had several odd man rushes where we failed to score. We shot the puck wide or over the top of the net too much.

- Faceoffs cost us on two of their goals as we got beat to the puck on one of them and the other we got out muscled.

- I just felt we did not have enough guys in the fight tonight. Quad City wanted the game more than we did.

- Richard Matvichuk had this to say about the defense, "The defense did not play good enough tonight. It is not what we are used to seeing. We had too many turnovers, got beat to loose pucks and puck movement wasn't good."


OTHER COMMENTS:

- Allen out shot Quad City 34-26 and had the advantage on special teams scoring one power play goal while not allowing the Mallards to score on the power play so despite the outcome there were some positives. It did seem like the bounces were going Quad City's way. 

- Amateur Cain Franson had several nice plays where he set up teammates for scoring opportunities or put the puck on net himself. He does a good job of moving his feet and skates well. He just needs to get that first goal to take the pressure off of himself.

- Gregor Hanson was held scoreless for the first time in the playoffs despite having five shots on goal. He is now tied for the team lead in scoring with Anthony Maiani and Bruce Graham as they all have nine points.

- In the other series Denver beat Arizona at home by a score of 2-1 as both goals came on the power play. Denver had nine power play opportunities in the game compared to four for Arizona. Certainly a low scoring game for these two high powered offenses. They play game two of their series tonight (Saturday).

- Darryl Bootland never seems to catch a break from the referee. He took a stick to the face late in the game right in front of the referee and despite a bloody nose there was no call. It happened a couple of time to Bootland where what seemed to be a high stick was not called.

- The attendance at the games last night was 3879 in Allen and 1793 in Denver. Average playoff attendance thus far this year is 3055 which is almost 600 per game lower than last year. With the CHL's top four teams (Missouri, Wichita, Tulsa & Rapid City) when it comes to average attendance out of the playoffs don't look for much improvement as the playoffs move forward.

Courtesy CHL Memes

DID YOU KNOW: Allen lost the first game of every series on the way to the championship last year. This year all of the teams that have advanced to the second round lost the first game of their first round series with the exception of Allen. And all four of the teams that advanced to the second round (Allen, Quad City, Arizona, & Denver) won their first round series on the road.