The Odessa Jackalopes made up their rescheduled game against the El Paso Rhinos Sunday evening.
The 1st period saw the Jacks get out to the lead first as Kowin Belsterling maintained possession with the puck on the play and backhanded one past former Jackalopes goaltender Kael DePape to give the Jacks the 1-0 lead. That lead wouldn’t last long as El Paso would strike on the power play under two minutes later off of a deflection in front of the net. The Jacks would once again be shorthanded later in the period and with five minutes remaining the Rhinos would convert for their 2nd power play goal of the game. The Rhinos would take the 2-1 lead going into the 1st intermission. Shots on goal read 15-9 in favor of El Paso.
The 2nd period, the Jacks came out fighting. Just 11 seconds into the period, Cam Dunn moved to the top of the faceoff circle, near side, and sniped one in the back of the net to tie the game at two. Dunn would get another opportunity just 10 seconds later as he tried a very similar shot toward the cage, but it was stopped by the blocker of DePape. El Paso would respond three minutes later with a goal of their own to make it a 3-2 game. The rest of the game would be a teeter-totter similar to the 2nd period. Shots on goal for the 2nd were 12-8 in favor of the Jackalopes.
In the 3rd period it would once again be the Jackalopes tying the game, a broken play out in front saw Christian Tavare get a wide open cage and he made no mistake depositing the biscuit into the basket for the goal. El Paso would respond once again with a goal, Frank Tafelski notched his 2nd goal of the game for the Rhinos. Just like the rest of the game has gone, there is always fight in this Jackalopes squad as James Richman received a tipped pass from Michael Kadlecik, and sniped the puck glove side on DePape. Head Coach for the Rhinos, Joe Coombs, had seen enough and yanked DePape in favor of Joe LoVullo. Just 103 seconds later, the Rhinos would receive their 3rd power play of the game. All it took was 5 seconds for the Rhinos on the power play to find the back of the net. Tafelski got his hat trick. That marks back-to-back nights the Jackalopes have allowed a hat trick for the opposing team. The Rhinos would finish the night 3-3 on the power play. Later in the period, both teams’ tempos began to slow down. It wasn’t until the goalie was pulled with just over a minute to go where Dunn saw the puck rolling to him in the near faceoff circle and he winded up a slap shot and beat LoVullo short side to tie the game at 5. This would send the game to overtime.
Both teams had some great opportunities in the overtime period. Kadlecik almost had a highlight reel finish as his Michigan attempt hit the crossbar with 2:22 left in OT. El Paso would control the ensuing faceoff and Camden Bajzer sped into the zone by himself, split the two defenders and put one high glove on Sigurdson to win the game for the Rhinos.
Following the game, this is what Head Coach Scott Deur had to say regarding next week’s pivotal games against the Brahmas. “Our teams usually fare pretty well against them. I think the last two years I’ve been here we’ve had the season series against them. We’ve only seen them twice and they’ve been on noon games on a Monday, so you don’t have a lot of time to prepare. We’ll have more time to prepare this week and be ready for them.”
The Jacks fall to 16-19-5 on the season with their next game being Friday, February 2nd, vs. Lone Star @ 7:15 P.M. You can listen to the voice of the Jacks, Brandon Luisi, on NAHLTV and YouTube.