North Richland Hills, TX – The Odessa Jackalopes have played the Lone Star Brahmas well the last five times out at the Nytex Sport Centre. A loud and physical rink, the Jacks love to feed off the fans, whether it’s home or away.
The Jackalopes settled back into their ways of coming out a little slow on Friday nights on the road. They spend the majority of the day on the bus, traveling to their destination, so it takes some time to get their legs under them.
The Lone Star Brahmas were able to get on the board first thanks to a backhanded wrister from Drake Glover surprised Jonny Hogue in net for the 1-0 lead 7 minutes into regulation. Heading onto their 2nd power play of the night, the Brahmas were able to net one more as Glover redirected a John Zimmerman slapper through the wickets of Hogue for the 2-goal lead.
The Jackalopes found their legs late in the period as a bad pass from Lone Star was intercepted by Zach Heintz between the dots, and one little stickhandle and a shot found the five-hole of Alec Calvaruso to bring the Jacks within 1 with 46 seconds remaining.
The 2nd period went the way of Odessa as they were playing very aggressive, leading to a couple more power plays and even more goals. The Jackalopes headed to the Kenner Printing power play as Lone Star’s Alex Stoley made one too many moves. It allowed Ryan MacKellar to strip the puck and force a 2-on-1 breakaway for the Jackalopes. MacKellar’s shot was saved, but the rebound came out to Thudium on the far post. Thudium was able to knuckle a puck past Calvaruso for the tie game.
Five minutes later, the Jackalopes hard working defenseman, Rune Kirby, received a pass from Christian Hausinger and fired one past the chicken-wing of Calvaruso for the go-ahead goal. This prompted Lone Star to make a goalie change and Max Prawdzik would see the remaining game time.
Lone Star entered the 3rd period on a power play already, but a board call from Nick Wilson 33 seconds in allowed the Brahmas a two-man advantage. They took advantage of the 5-on-3 power play as Drake Glover netted his third of the night for the hat trick 15 seconds later. Prawdzik and Hogue would shut out the remaining of the 3rd period, resulting in the 2nd straight overtime game between these two squads.
The overtime allowed a chance a piece before Hausinger found Ludwig Stenlund across neutral ice. Stenlund deked and walked past Lone Star’s Troy York before taking a soft shot on net that Prawdzik saved. Unfortunately for Lone Star, the puck landed right back on Stenlund’s stick and he push it softly back into the open net for the overtime winner.
The Jackalopes came away with 2 points on a night that also saw the Corpus Christi IceRays drop their game in regulation. With playoffs still a possibility, this is the type of wine he Jackalopes needed to get things started.
Odessa will come back again tomorrow night to try and take the weekend against the Brahmas. This will also be the final time these two teams will face off this regular season, with puck drop at 7:30 pm.
