The Odessa Jackalopes took on the New Mexico Ice Wolves, Thursday night, for the final time in the regular season.
Taking a look at the 1st period of play, it would be the Ice Wolves getting the icebreaker in the contest and taking the 1-0 lead off of a shot in between the faceoff circles, past Aries Carangi. The Jacks would respond with a gritty, greasy goal in front of the net. A loose puck scramble, eventually found the stick of Kowin Belsterling, who nestled one into the back of the net to tie the game at one. That’s how the 1st period would end. Shots on goal were in favor of the Ice Wolves 9-4.
For the Jacks, you couldn’t have started the 2nd period better, just five seconds into the period, as Michael Kadlecik won the faceoff forward, the play would quickly turn into a two on one. Kadlecik made no mistake firing the puck into the back of the net to give the Jacks the 2-1 lead. However, the excitement would just be getting started. On the Jacks power play, the Ice Wolves led a rush the other way and fired a wrister home past Carangi to tie the game at two. That was the 1st shorthanded goal of the season for New Mexico. The scoring and pace would die down for a while, until New Mexico would be awarded a power play with about 7 minutes remaining in the 2nd. The Jacks would start a shorthanded rush, Trevor Mitchell fired one toward the net, and getting inside position was Belsterling who fired the puck into the back of the net as the Jacks responded with a shorthanded goal of their own. That made it 3-2 Jacks. Then in the last minute of the period, a two on one rush was created off of a nice neutral zone pass from Belsterling, which sent Charlie Smith and Tommy Wright ahead. Smith held onto the puck until the goalie bit, and fired one bar down to make it 4-2 Jackalopes. That’s how the period would end, with shots on goal for the period 8-7 in favor of Odessa.
Things got chippy in the 3rd period as Bryce Johnson and Tommy Manzella dropped the gloves within the first five minutes of the period. Just 17 seconds after the fight the Ice Wolves would pull within one as Carangi was screened in front of the net. That brought the game to a 4-3 contest. The Jacks would be awarded two power plays in the first 10 minutes, however, they would not convert on them. The Ice Wolves would also get two opportunities in the late stages of the 3rd period, but the Jacks penalty kill came up strong. James Richman would seal the deal with an empty net goal, making it 5-3. Final shots on goal read 25-21 New Mexico.
When asked about his overall thoughts on the contest, here’s what Head Coach Scott Deur had to say. “I’m glad with the way we played. I thought we could’ve controlled the game a bit quicker. Our power play just seemed to be off sync today. We were lucky enough to get that penalty kill goal, which was huge and then getting that goal with 46 seconds left, I thought was the changer in momentum for everything.” Deur also mentioned the stellar play from Carangi later in his quote. “2nd start for our goalie and I thought he played really well. He stopped the ones that he could actually see. I thought he was screened on a couple of other ones, but overall we’re happy with that start to the weekend, now we have to keep it going”
The Jacks improve to 21-24-7 on the season, with their next game being, Friday, March 15th, vs. Corpus Christi @ 7:15 P.M.
All Jacks games can be streamed on the North American Hockey League’s streaming service NAHLTV, with the voice of the Jacks, Brandon Luisi. A free audio only version will also be available on the Odessa Jackalopes YouTube page.