Americans rip win from Thunder

By the time it was safe for the Thunder to at least begin thinking about a win over Allen on Sunday and a perfect, six-point weekend in the midst of a playoff race, the Americans vanquished those thoughts.

Wichita led by two goals with fewer than five minutes to play, but Allen scored twice before regulation ended and scored in the seventh round of a shootout to win 6-5 at Intrust Bank Arena.

The Thunder was minutes from its third win of the weekend and second straight against Allen, which leads the ECHL Central Division by 19 points but has played several competitive games against the Thunder.

“We didn’t do anything offensively in the third,” Thunder coach Kevin McClelland said. “We sat back. I’m not using tired as an excuse, but we got our bus re-routed (Saturday) night and the extra 15 minutes (on the bus) caught up to us.”

Wichita controlled Sunday’s game by performing as a better version of Allen and by taking the Americans out of their comfort zone with physical play that helped produce a 15-penalty second period.

The Thunder, as the Americans usually do, produced efficient playmaking with crisp, precise passes.

Wichita played above its No. 20 ranking in the power play with a pair of power-play goals and the Thunder matched up favorably defensively against an Allen offense that has seven players with at least 30 points.

That’s not unusual – though Allen won two games in Texas last month by a combined 14-6 score, the Thunder has played the Americans as well or better than anyone in the league, handing them four of their 13 losses.

Tulsa (four) and Rapid City (two) are the only other teams with multiple wins over Allen.

“We played them good at the start of the year, won a couple games down there and won a couple games in overtime,” Thunder captain Ian Lowe said. “We just play them hard. They’ve got some forwards that are skilled, but if you stay on them and hack and whack at them and play hard, you can have some success.”

It’s tough to keep Allen down for long, though. The Americans took advantage of a possibly fatigued Thunder by outshooting Wichita 20-12 after the second period.

Chad Costello made it 5-4 with 4:26 to play – that provided a chance for foreshadowing to when Allen, fifth in the league in the power play, would pull its goalie for a 6-on-5 advantage down the stretch.

Seconds into that advantage, former Thunder forward Allen Hanson scored with 1:11 to play.

“They kept coming, kept coming,” McClelland said. “They had more gas than us tonight.”

Thunder goaltender Tim Boron saved the first four Allen shots in the shootout, but Ian Schultz scored in round five to push it to sudden death before Spencer Asuchak won it in round seven.

“Getting five (points) out of six is good, but that one is going to hurt for a while,” Lowe said. “We’re up by two goals – we can’t let that happen. That’s not good at all.”

This story was originally published February 15, 2015 at 9:47 PM with the headline "Americans rip win from Thunder."