The Week in Review, The Week Ahead, The Remaining Schedule, Outshooting Opponents and More

Last week was a tough one for the Allen Americans. The team started the week in fourth place with a four-point lead over fifth place Utah and two points from second place. The Americans ended the week in fifth place, two points behind Utah and Wichita and three points from second place.

– Losing two games in Idaho was not a surprise when you consider the Steelheads home record this season is 25-3-0-0. In fact, other than Utah, there is not a single ECHL team that has visited Idaho and won a game this season, so Allen is in good company.

– Allen has a great opportunity to get back on track this week and move back into a playoff spot. Three games against the Utah Grizzlies (Thursday, Friday, Sunday) with fourth place on the line. Allen has plenty of confidence when playing Utah with a 6-2-1-0 record against the Grizzlies this season.

– Allen has 16 games remaining, eleven at home and five on the road. Here is a list of the remaining games with the opponent’s current points percentage (home and/or away) in parenthesis.

• 3 games at home against Utah (.532)
• 3 games at home against Idaho (.741)
• 3 games at Rapid City (.593)
• 3 games at home against Savannah (.426)
• 2 games against Wichita (1H, 1A) (.677H – .304A)
• 1 game at Tulsa (.500)
• 1 game at home against Kansas City (.339)

– When you consider five teams are competing for three playoff spots in the Mountain Division it is likely the final seedings won’t be decided until the last weekend of the regular season. Idaho has already clinched the #1 seed and will take on the #4 seed in the opening round of the playoffs. The #4 seed will not be an enviable spot so the #2 or #3 seed is what teams will be striving for. Here is the schedule the last weekend of the season (April 14 & 15) for the five teams competing for three playoff spots:

• Allen – 14th at Wichita, 15th Wichita at home
• Kansas City – 14th and 15th Cincinnati at home
• Rapid City – 14th and 15th Idaho at home
• Utah – 14th and 15th Tulsa at home
• Wichita – 14th Allen at home, 15th at Allen

– Allen has four players in the top seven in the ECHL in goals scored. They are all having fabulous goal scoring seasons even by their standards. How does this season compare to past seasons for these four players? I decided to check it out:

Hank Crone – Hank’s 36 goals leads the ECHL and he is projected to hit 47 goals by the end of the season. The most goals Hank has ever scored was his last year in juniors in the USHL with the Fargo Force when he scored 24 goals in 56 games.

Colton Hargrove – Colton is second in the ECHL with 33 goals and is projected to end the season with 44 goals. This is his first year in the ECHL having spent his first seven pro seasons in the AHL or in Europe. Going back to his junior career (NAHL & USHL) and all through his pro career, Hargrove has never scored more than 16 goals in a single season.

Jack Combs – Jack is fourth in ECHL with 31 goals and is projected to finish the season with 40 goals. Jack has had one 40 goal season as a professional. In 2010-11 he scored 40 goals playing for the Tulsa Oilers in the old Central Hockey League. FYI, his line mate was Chad Costello who had 34 goals and led the team with 84 points. By the way, Gary Steffes was also on that team (19 goals).

Liam Finlay – Liam is seventh in the ECHL in goals scored with 28 goals and is projected to finish the season with 38 goals. The most goals Finlay has ever scored in juniors, college or as a pro was in 2014-15. Playing junior hockey in the BCHL he had 23 goals in 55 games.

OTHER COMMENTS

–  Justin Cohn covers the Fort Wayne Komets for the local paper (The Journal Gazette). Fort Wayne’s coach, Ben Boudreau, was kicked out of the game in the third period yesterday in a game the Komets lost to Indy 6-2. Cohn posted a string of post-game quotes which will clearly get the attention of the league. FYI, when I was named the official blogger for the Allen Americans, I was warned not to criticize the officials in my blog. Here are a couple of the “quote gems” posted by Cohn.

Ben Boudreau: “For me, it was the most embarrassing, unprofessional, worst performance by a referee, one referee, Sam Heidemann, and he set the tone. He came over and attacked one of the captains, called him a (expletive) right to his face, in front of the bench.” 

More Boudreau: “He made up penalties and then punished us for asking where the call was, in a professional manner. So, you have one guy with a (history) of coming in here and making an impact, and you could see it from the first call on Pelletier through the rest of the game.”

– With 80% of the ECHL season completed the average attendance is 4574 per game, an increase of 639 per game over last season’s 3935 per game average. More significant is the average attendance this season is above the pre-covid average attendance. In 2018-19 the average ECHL attendance was 4445.

DID YOU KNOW: The ECHL Stats post today is about shots. Allen has outshot its opponents 29% of the time, 16 of 56 games. Allen’s record when outshooting the opponent 11-4-1-0. Allen has been outshot 71% of the time, 40 of 56 games. The Americans record when being outshot is 17-23-0-0.

ECHL teams that have outshot their opponents most frequently this season (by percentage):79% (45 of 57 games)- South Carolina75% (43 of 57 games) – Idaho70% (42 of 60 games) – Toledo68% (39 of 57 games) – Fort Wayne67% (38 of 57 games) – ReadingHere are the two teams that have outshot their opponents less than 20% of the time:16% (9 of 59 games) – Wichita17% (10 of 60 games) – Savannah