Allen vs Rapid City Preview, Mountain Division Tightens, Tonight’s Lineup, Goalie Fight Video, Hockey IQ Video, NHL, AHL, ECHL Trade Deadlines and More

It is game day for the Allen Americans and the start of another important series, something I seem to say every week. The Americans will play the Rapid City Rush tonight (7:05 pm) and tomorrow afternoon (2:05 pm). The reason every weekend is so important is the Mountain Division is the tightest in the ECHL. Idaho beat Kansas City last night and now has a staggering 30 points lead in the division. However, after last night the rest of the field, from second to last place, is separated by just nine points. Utah beat Wichita 5-4 in overtime and Tulsa beat Kalamazoo 4-1 last night to tighten the standings even more. Here is the latest with points percentage in parenthesis:

• 87 points – Idaho (.821)
• 57 points – Wichita (.518)
• 56 points – Kansas City (.528)
• 53 points – Allen (.510)
• 51 points – Utah (.481)
• 49 points – Rapid City (.471)
• 46 points – Tulsa (.442)

– Who is hot and who is not? Here are the records over the last 10 games for the Mountain Division from best to worst:

• 9-0-1-0: Idaho
• 6-4-0-0: Allen
• 5-3-2-0: Utah
• 5-4-1-0: Kansas City
• 4-6-0-0: Tulsa
• 4-6-0-0: Rapid City
• 1-7-2-0: Wichita

– You look at the points above, you can see how important the two games against Rapid City this weekend are for the Americans. They could be tied with Wichita (57 points) for second place with two wins or tied with Rapid City (51 points) for sixth place with two losses.

– If you look at season long stats Allen averages more goals per game than Rapid City (3.6 vs 3.3). If you look more recently, at the last 15 games, Allen has scored 77 goals which is an average 5.1 goals per game. Rapid City has scored 46 goals in its last 15 games, an average of 3.1 goals per game.

– Special teams are always key to any series and Allen has a clear advantage against Rapid City. Overall power play stats favor Allen, ranked #2 in the ECHL at 23.7% vs Rapid City, ranked #22 at 16.7%. On the penalty kill Allen is ranked #12 (81.3%) vs Rapid City ranked dead last in the ECHL at 74.4%.

– If you compare home vs road special team stats, Allen at home is 23.5% on the power play and 81.8% on the penalty kill. Rapid City on the road is 14.9% on the power play and 75.6% on the penalty kill.

– Neither of these teams have been in a lot of overtimes, Allen five and Rapid City seven, but both are great in extra time games. Allen is 3-1 in overtime and 1-0 in shootouts for a points percentage of .800. Rapid City is 5-1 in overtime and 1-0 in shootouts for a points percentage of .857.

– Allen is 16-6-1-0 (.717) when scoring the first goal of the game, Rapid City is 17-9-1-0 (.648). When they don’t score the first goal of the game Allen is 10-19-0-0 (.345) and Rapid City is 7-18-0-0 (.280). A huge benefit accrues to the team that scores first.

TONIGHT’S LINEUP – haven’t seen the official lineup so this is my best guess since it hasn’t changed much lately. Justin Young is not available.

FORWARDS

• 67 Crone-7 Hargrove-29 McAuley 
• 21 Combs-17 Butcher-15 Finlay 
• 44 Fournier-77 Hebert-32 Robidoux
•                                          25 Brown

DEFENSEMEN

• 4 Myllari-23 Saucerman 
• 49 Massicotte-24 Skelly
• 22 Gally-3 Gagnon 

GOALIES

• 35 Perry
• 31 Peressini

OTHER COMMENTS

– A lot of streaks and scoring plateaus will be on the line tonight:

• Hank Crone has goals in six straight games.
• Jack Combs has points in 17 straight games and assists in six straights games.
• Jack Combs has points in 10 straight home games.
• Colton Hargrove has 26 goals in his last 26 games.
• Liam Finlay has had multiple points in eight of the last 10 games. 

– In 2014-15 Chad Costello set the Allen all-time record by scoring at least one point in 65 of 72 games (90.3%). In only seven games the entire season he was held without a point. 

– There are 12 games on the ECHL schedule tonight. Two of the idle teams are Utah and Wichita. They play again tomorrow in Wichita. Here is the ECHL Today with the previews: https://www.echl.com/en/news/2023/3/echl-today-march-4

– A great example of hockey IQ is shown in this video featuring a Leon Draisaitl goal from last night. https://youtu.be/UGnvYoBdumg

– Goalie Rémi Poirier as spent most of the season in Idaho where he leads the ECHL in GAA at 2.07 and has a record of 19-2-1-1. The Dallas Stars sixth round draft choice was recently recalled to the Texas Stars. He is 3-0 in three starts for Texas and last night added a goalie fight to go along with his 5-3 win over Milwaukee. Here are the game highlights. The fighting starts at the 4:15 mark and there are several views of the goalie fight. Poirier was fighting against Nashville’s first round draft choice, Yaroslav Askarov. https://youtu.be/SLopE0u_ubk

DID YOU KNOW: Reminder, Trade Deadline Dates:NHL: The NHL trade deadline passed yesterday afternoon (3:00 pm ET) with about 20 trades on the final day and 60+ in the last two weeks.AHL: The AHL trade deadline date is next Friday, March 10 at 3:00 pm ET.ECHL: The ECHL trade deadline is Thursday, March 16 at 3:00 pm ET.Several ECHL teams were impacted by the NHL deadline. Even more will be impacted by the AHL and ECHL trade deadlines over the next two weeks.

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