The Allen Americans hosted the Corpus Christi IceRays at the Allen Event Center on Saturday night, in the second game of a “home-and-home” series. On Friday night, the Americans went down to South Texas and got a gritty win on the road, 2-1. By the end of the game, the attitude on the ice had turned a bit chippy, so many were expecting a physical, fight-filled game on Saturday. Those people were not disppointed. But, what they also got was one of the Allen Americans most complete games of the year. Allen dominated almost every aspect of the hockey game, and shutout the IceRays, 4-0.
“We kind of had a game plan and we stuck to it,” said Americans head coach Dwight Mullins. “Obviously we wanted to assert ourselves physically, which we did. But I really liked the pace of our game tonight. All in all, for our third game in three nights (they played Arizona on Thursday night as well as the IceRays in Corpus on Friday), I was really happy with the effort the hockey team put in.”
The first period was uneventful from an offensive standpoint; both teams were held scoreless in the opening frame. But, there were plenty of fisticuffs to keep the fans in attendance on their feet. Allen’s Britt Dougherty dropped the gloves against Corpus’ Adam Powell. Dougherty was the clear victor in the bout, taking Powell to the ice with a hard right hook. Upon the ensuing face-off, Nathan O’Nabigon of the Americans squared off against the IceRays’ Morgan MacLean. The Americans were once again the victors of the match. After the puck dropped again, yet another fight broke out. This time between Allen’s Liam Huculak and Corpus’ Tyler Sheldrake. The battle drifted into the corner of the rink, with both sides exchanging solid punches before the refs stepped in to sort it out, and sent the players off to their increasingly-crowded penalty boxes.
“We want to be physical and we want to entertain the fans,” Mullins said of the pugilistic opening period. “We don’t have just one dimension, we have different components, and one of those components is toughness. We feel like we’re deep in that area and it’s an entertaining part of our sport.”
In the second period, it was Nathan O’Nabigon who opened the scoring early, getting a goal just 1:20 into the frame.
“Part of our strategy was to work the puck down low because we thought we could probably take the puck to the net,” said O’Nabigon.
Christian Gaudet had the puck down low in the IceRays zone, and was trying to take it to the net, just as O’Nabigon has said. Corpus’ defense choked him up, and the puck ended up on O’Nabigon’s stick.
“I originally tried on the backhand, but it didn’t go. It ended up back on my stick, so I just threw it back on net and it went ‘top cheese’”, O’Nabigon smiled.
The offense kept piling it on, pressuring the IceRays’ defense and Corpus netminder Kevin Nastiuk. Bruce Graham put the Americans up 2-0 later in the 2nd when he flipped the puck over the left shoulder of the goalie. In the third, Allen piled onto the lead getting a goal from Tobias Whelan and a second goal from Graham, this time on the power play.
The IceRays pushed back as best they could, but didn’t seem to have the energy to compete with Allen on Saturday. The Americans were beating Corpus to loose pucks, blocking shots from the IceRays, and pounding Nastiuk with rubber when they had an open lane for a shot.
“What an entertaining hockey game,” Mullins said. “I think fans really got their money’s worth. It had all of the physical components that everybody likes to see as well as some goals and a shutout. I think was a real exciting brand of hockey. That’s what we tried to strive for all summer long in bringing this group.”
Photos by: John O’Neill
