The Odessa Jackalopes took the ice for the final game of the 2023-24 regular season on Friday night against the Corpus Christi IceRays..
The 1st period, the aggression and physicality was apparent. Braden Pietila and Wolfgang Govedaris dropped the gloves just a couple of minutes in for the first fight of the evening. The only scoring of the first period came near the midway point of the opening frame as IceRays forward Pierson Sobush notched his 20th goal of the season to make it a 1-0 lead in favor of Corpus Christi, which is the lead they would take into the 1st intermission. Shots on goal were dead even at 10 on both sides.
The Jackalopes would receive a power play early in the 2nd period and would take advantage of the opportunity as Hayden DeMars would notch his 18th of the season and team-leading 7th on the power play. That tied the game at 1 a side. For DeMars, that goal put him tied for 5th all time in power-play goals in a single season in Odessa Jackalopes history. Later in the 2nd period we would see our 2nd fight of the game as Cam Dunn would drop the gloves with Sobush from the IceRays, that was Dunn’s first fight of his two-year NAHL career. The period would end tied at 1 with shots on goal being 25-23 in favor of the Jackalopes.
The 3rd period saw both sides get their opportunities but Jackalopes goaltender Ivan Zhigalov standing tall and keeping the door shut. The Jackalopes would strike with under seven minutes remaining in the 3rd period. A 2 on 1 rush began and James Richman fed one across to Christian Tavare who fired the puck into the back of the net to give the Jackalopes the 2-1 lead. Later in the period, we would see another scrap as Tommy Wright would take on Griffin Zaske. Wright landed a big left hand to knock Zaske to his knees, in what was his first NAHL fight as well. The Jackalopes would tag on the empty net as Dunn fired it home to secure the two points. Both Dunn and Michael Kadlecik are now tied for 5th all time in points in a single season in Odessa Jackalopes history with 55.
The Jackalopes finish the season at 23-29-8 on the season for a total of 54 points.