PHN’s Best Shots of the Game: Allen Americans @ Fort Worth Brahmas 12/28/12

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS, Texas – Friday night began a three-game weekend set for the Allen Americans, starting with a home-and-away matchup with the Fort Worth Brahmas before ending the weekend with a New Year’s Eve battle with the Quad City Mallards.

This was the fourth time the Brahmas and Americans have met this season with Allen going into the contest holding the edge in the season series, two games to one.

Despite being doubled in shots for the opening frame at 14-7, the Allen Americans managed to head to the first intermission with a two-goal lead over Fort Worth on a pair of quick goals ninety seconds apart. Tyler Ludwig opened the scoring with a blast from the point through a screen by Darryl Bootland for his 3rd goal of the year at 11:24 on the power play, assisted by Scotty Howes and Trevor Ludwig. Then it was Scotty Howes completing a nifty show of tic-tac-toe passing, scoring his 20th goal in as many games for the Americans off a beautiful no-look pass from Anthony Maiani. Darryl Bootland picked up his 18th assist of the season with the secondary on the Howes score at the 13:00 mark.

The Brahmas dominated scoring in the middle frame, tallying three unanswered goals by period’s end which was started by Sy Nutkevich, notching his 8th goal of the season on the power play, assisted by Erik Spady and Tomas Klempa at 6:58. The game was then tied on Calin Wild’s first goal of the season, assisted by Jake Morley at 11:02. Then it was Tomas Klempa, assisted by Sy Nutkevich and Nick Schneider at 17:37 to give the Brahmas their first lead of the night at 3-2. Shots on goal were tied 7-7 at the close of the second period with the Brahmas holding the two period edge by a 21-14 count.

Allen bounced back quickly in the third, netting the tying score at 1:35 on a goal by Anthony Maiani, assisted by Trevor and Tyler Ludwig. The Americans regained the lead 4-3 on a Darryl Bootland power play goal less than two minutes later, assisted by Scotty Howes at 3:14. The Brahmas battled back to again tie the game 4-4 less than three minutes later on Calin Wild’s second marker of the night, assisted by Austin Mayer. Allen took back the lead for the final time on Scotty Howes’ second goal of the night and 21st of the year with Darryl Bootland and Anthony Maiani chipping in the assists at 16:24. The Americans held on to defeat the Fort Worth Brahmas 5-4, although out shot 10-8 in the third and 31-22 through three periods of play. The following images were recorded at the NYTEX Sports Centre on Friday evening.