Allen Loses 3-2 in Eight Round Shootout, Martinson Comments, Full Moon Oddities & More

It was an all too familiar pattern last night when the Allen Americans lost to the Tulsa Oilers by a score of 3-2 before an announced crowd of 7171 at the BOK Center. The Americans got down 2-0, had a great third period comeback to tie the score 2-2 and then lost the game in a shootout. It took eight rounds of shootout before Tulsa scored the game winner as 6' 7" Axel Blomqvist beat Joel Rumpel on the blocker side.

- Goal scorers for Allen were Vincent Arseneau (5) and Gary Steffes (16).

- Prior to the game last night Allen had been in two shootouts and had scored on 30% (3-10) of their attempts. Last night they went 0-8. The Americans are now rated #24 in the ECHL with a shootout percentage of 16.7% (3-18).

- Even though Allen lost all three games this weekend they were able to garner two very important points with third period comebacks in both games against Tulsa.

- The Americans will have all week to prepare for three games against Wichita this weekend. They will play in Wichita on Friday and in Allen on Saturday and Sunday.



STEVE MARTINSON'S POST GAME COMMENTS

- Even though we lost tonight there are a lot of positives we can take from this game. The guys never gave up and the two goals in the third period earned us a point.

- It was nice to come from behind again. Last year we had four high scoring offensive defensemen which made coming from behind a lot easier. 

- We have a favorable schedule now with the majority of games at home so we need to buckle down.

- I am going to try and meet individually with all of the players this week. I want to hear what they have to say, get input from them and also clarify my expectations going forward.


OTHER COMMENTS

- With the overtime and shootout losses in Tulsa, the Americans come home with just a two point lead in the race for second place in the Central Division. Here are the current standings with games played in parentheses:

85 points - Missouri (51 games)
63 points - Allen (53 games)
61 points - Tulsa (51 games)
33 points - Wichita (53 games)


- Riley Gill did not get a start this weekend because he is not 100%.  Had a question as to why he was taken off injured reserve for the weekend if he was not 100%. He is completely recovered from the upper body injury that put him on IR so that is not the issue.

- Allen has now lost seven of their last eight road games. In their lone win (6-2 in Alaska) they scored the first goal. In the seven losses the Americans opponent scored first.

- If you didn't get a chance to see the feature on Fort Wayne broadcaster Bob Chase that was presented by Doc Emrick as part of Hockey Day in America yesterday you have to take a look. Very special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6weSUEo_Jg

- Another part of the Hockey Day in America broadcast was displaying the leading scorer by league  as all are from the US. Included in that list was the ECHL's leading scorer, Chad Costello. Some great national publicity for Chad.

- Former Allen captain Jamie Schaafsma has a history of slow starts to the season but gets hot at the end. It has happened again in Fort Wayne. Jamie had just six goals in the first four months of the season (October-January). In February he has scored five goals in the last six games. Jamie also has one of the best plus/minus numbers on the team with a +13.

- Aaron Dell continues his excellent play for the San Jose Barracuda leading them to a 4-1 win over Stockton yesterday. Aaron had 39 saves which comes after a 50 save performance on February 10th and a 30 save shutout on February 13th. In his five starts in February, Aaron has a GAA of 1.41 and save percentage of .960.

It was a full moon last night and there were certainly some full moon oddities around the ECHL. Check these out:

- Allen had two goals in their loss to Tulsa and scored with exactly eight minutes left in the game and four minutes left in the game.

- Missouri scored the winning goal but lost the game 2-1 to Evansville. With the game tied 1-1 in the third period, Missouri pulled their goalie because of a delayed penalty against Evansville.  Missouri's Tyler Barnes was attempting to make a pass from the point but the pass bounced off an Evansville player and went all the way down the ice into the goal. The goal ended up being the game winner. You can check out this and all of the ECHL highlights in the "ECHL Rewind" at: http://www.echl.com/

- Wichita was forced to play their emergency back up goaltender aka bus driver, Kevin St. Pierre, last night when starting goalie, David Shantz, came out of the game at the 16:55 mark of the first period because of an injury. The Thunder were losing to Idaho 3-1 when St. Pierre entered the game. Kevin played great (stopped 11 of 13 shots) as Wichita scored three unanswered goals in the third period to send the game to overtime. Idaho won the game in overtime but it was a great night for St. Pierre and Thunder fans. Even though St. Pierre is the Wichita bus driver, is almost 41 years old and hasn't played full time professionally since 2009-10, he has a great resume with over 600 professional games including a few games in the AHL. Steve Martinson shared this with me about St. Pierre when he saw he played in Wichita last night, "He was the Fort Wayne goalie that beat us in a game seven years ago when I was coaching in Rockford. He was unbeatable." This is what St. Pierre had to say after the game, "I've been playing men's league, but this is the first time I have skated in almost three weeks because I've been driving the bus."

- Fort Wayne forward Garrett Muers scored two goals in four seconds last night in a 5-4 overtime loss to Colorado. It was the fastest back to back goals in the 64 years the Komets have played. Muers also now owns the ECHL record for the fastest two goals by the same player.


DID YOU KNOW:  The Allen Americans have a record of 14-10-1-1 against their fellow Central Division foes. However, if you eliminate Allen's 8-0 record against Wichita, the Americans are just 6-10-1-1 against Missouri and Tulsa.