Tulsa Oilers' forward Troy Riddle drives toward Chris Whitley and the Allen Americans' net in Friday night's game at the Allen Event Center. The Americans won the game, 5-3. (photo credit: Ben Ellis)

The Allen Americans faced a team as much like themselves as any they’ve faced so far this season on Friday night.  The Tulsa Oilers are a physical, aggressive hockey team, and, as they were on a 4-game losing streak, they came into the Allen Event Center hungry for a win.  The Americans handled the Oilers well, holding out for a 5-3 victory.

“They’re a really good team,” Americans head coach Dwight Mullins said.  “They had a great start to their season as well.  I think special teams definitely played a part tonight.  We took advantage of the opportunities that we needed to, and for the most part I think we stuck to the game plan we had put in place.”

Specials teams were definitely a big part of this game, as there were a combined 17 power plays.  The Americans had 11 of those, converting two for goals.  They also held the Oilers off the board on all six of their power plays.

“The referee tries to set a standard,” Mullins said.  “That standard sometimes changes from night to night.  You just try to adapt.  Again, I thought we executed well when we had to.  I thought the goals that they got – there were a couple of lucky breaks here and there.  For the most part, I thought we did what we needed to do to win the hockey game.”

Bruce Graham was the big gun for the Americans in the game, scoring two goals, including the eventual game-winner.

“Both goals, it was just good plays by Nino (Mussitelli) and (Justin) Bowers.  I was just trying to put myself in the right place to put it in.”

The Americans opened the scoring in the first period on a goal by defenseman Chris Kaufman, just under five minutes into the period.  Tulsa tied the game as they caught Allen goaltender Chris Whitley out of position, and beat his dive back into the net.  Allen re-took the lead late in the period on Graham’s first goal of the night.  Jordan Benn added to that lead about two minutes later, on a mirror-image play of Tulsa’s goal from earlier in the period.  A shot by Christian Gaudet whistled over the right-hand side of the net and ricocheted off of the end boards to a waiting Jordan Benn, who had a mostly open net at which to shoot.

The Oilers changed goaltenders to being the second period, with Marty Magers taking the place of Kevin Armstrong.  But the change in pipes didn’t seem to affect the American’s ability to score.  Allen increased their lead to 5-1 on goals from Graham and Bowers in the second period.  Tulsa’s leading scorer, Rob Hisey, just returning from the IR, helped close the gap with a goal in the waning minutes of the second period and another in the third.  But, in the end, the Americans strong play at both ends helped earn them the win.

The Americans improve to 16-5-1, just one point behind the front-running Odessa Jackalopes in the Southern Conference.  Allen hosts the Laredo Bucks on Saturday, who are coming off of a 1-0 loss to the Missouri Mavericks on Friday.

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