Minnesota Wild ECHL Team, Allen Americans, Announce Training Camp Roster
The Minnesota Wild ECHL Affiliate Allen Americans announce Camp Roster after ECHL start date announced.
The Allen Americans posted their training camp roster for the 2020-21 season on their website.
The roster posting coincides with another move the team made in early November, where officials for the Americans and the Minnesota Wild came together to announce an announce an extension as the Wild’s affiliated ECHL team.
The roster included eight players that did not play on the team last year. Out of those eight players, six are skaters (five forwards, one defenseman) and two are goalies. All of the skaters are Canadian-born, whilst the two goalies both hail from the United States.
The Americans lost some key contributors this year to call-ups and other moves, with the two leading scorers last year both no longer on the team: center Tyler Sheehy, who led the team with 70 points and tied the team lead with 26 goals, earned a call-up to the Iowa Wild, the Wild’s AHL affiliate.
Defenseman Alex Breton, who was second on the team in points with 55, took his talents across the pond to HC Banska Bystrica of the Tipos Extraliga in Slovakia.
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With those two departures and the departure of the fourth-leading scorer Alexander Guptill (52 points, 23 goals), left winger Olivier Archambault, who scored 52 points with 23 goals in 2019-20, will be the only returning member of the Americans that scored more than 40 points last season.
The position that received the most shake-ups in that regard would be the men between the pipes, as none of the five goalies that stepped foot on the ice for Allen last year returned for the 2020-21 season. With no goalies on the roster at the end of last season, the Americans signed Chris Nell in October and brought back CJ Motte from overseas.
Nell played with multiple ECHL teams in the 2019-20 season but spent most of his time with the Atlanta Gladiators. In 24 games with the Gladiators, he posted a .893 SV% and a 3.56 GAA.
Motte played 41 games with Allen in 2018-19, but spent the 2019-20 season across the Atlantic, playing in 16 games for the Austrian Hockey League with mediocre stats before playing 24 games in the Elite Ice Hockey League in the UK, where he posted a solid 2.52 GAA and a .927 SV% for the Coventry Blaze.
With COVID-19 still affecting the hockey world, it will be interesting to see how the Americans handle the beginning of the ECHL season. The team doesn’t have long to acclimate their new players to their system, however, as the new season begins December 12 against the Tulsa Oilers in Tulsa, Oklahoma.