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Mess with the bull, you get the horns: Americans eliminated by Brahmas in six games
BY Kevin Hageland, khageland@starlocalnews.com
The Allen Americans entered their playoff-opening series against the Texas Brahmas with a 7-2-2 advantage during the regular season.
But there’s a reason it’s called playoff hockey as regular season success didn’t translate. The Brahmas defeated the Americans on Tuesday at the NYTEX Sports Centre, 4-2, to win the best-of-7 Berry Conference Semifinal series by the same margin.
This is the first time in Allen’s three-year history the team hasn’t won a playoff series.
Texas added to its cushion early in the third period with a goal from Mike Hellyer and kept its 3-0 advantage intact past the midway point of the final frame.
Allen would make a push though as the team got goals from former Texas captain Jason Deitsch and Keith Johnson just 53 seconds apart to pull the Americans within 3-2 with 5:56 remaining. Johnson’s goal was assisted by Deitsch, who had the overtime game winner in Friday’s Game 4.
The Americans pulled goaltender Marco Cousineau with 1:30 remaining, looking for the equalizer and a decisive seventh game that would have been Wednesday night at the AEC. Instead, that strategy ended with an empty-net goal from Hellyer with 1:10 to go.
That made it 4-2, a margin that represented the final score of Tuesday’s game and the playoff series.
The Brahmas advance to face the Wichita Thunder in the Berry Conference Finals. Wichita was the regular season conference champion, but Texas may be the favorite as the last two teams that beat Allen in the playoffs, the Rapid City Rush in 2009-10 and Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs in 2010-11, finished the season as CHL Champions.
Allen was in a position to be eliminated Tuesday following Saturday night’s 1-0 loss in Game 5 that broke a 2-2 series tie.
Calin Wild scored 7:04 into the first frame off a cross-ice pass from Hellyer.
That was the only goal for either side.
The netminders took over from there. Cousineau stopped 19-of-20 shots and Fogal, making his first start of the series, shut down each of the 23 pucks that came his way.
Fogal’s performance in Game 5 as well as Game 6 on Tuesday, in which he stopped 22 shots, put Allen’s season at an end and pushed the Americans a round further away from the CHL Championship for a second straight year.
Newest CHL franchise announced
The Americans will have a new foe to battle in 2012-13 as the CHL announced Tuesday it is adding a team in Denver.
The yet-to-be-named franchise will play at the Denver Coliseum.
“It’s a great day in the city of Denver,” said Duane Lewis, CHL Commissioner. “Denver has such a rich hockey past and present and we are very pleased to have the CHL as a part of Denver’s hockey future.”
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