Albuquerque, New Mexico — The house was packed, the fans were loud and the red carpet was rolled out to kick of the Ice Wolves home opener. It was supposed to be the night New Mexico picked up their first win of the season, the Jackalopes had other plans.
The Odessa Jackalopes (2-0-1-0) defeated the New Mexico Ice Wolves (0-7-0-0) 4-3 in the shootout at the Outpost Ice Arena on Friday night.
The Jacks had to weather a storm in the first period as New Mexico fed off the crowd’s energy and took a 1-0 lead after a turn over in front.
Down 1-0 after 20 minutes, the Jackalopes stormed back in the second period with two goals in the first seven minutes of the period.
Gramm McCormack put the Jacks on the board to tie the game less then three minutes into the second. This was followed by Jack Vaughan’s first of the year on a hard wrister that went off the post and in.
The Jackalopes fallowed that up with a beautiful power-play goal from Connor Scahill who buried a one-timer to give Odessa the 3-1 lead.
The Ice Wolves stormed back in the latter half of the second and early part of the third. After a power-play goal and an even strength goal to tie it up 3-3. The Jackalopes weathered another storm in the third as shot after shot was sent Aaron Randozzo’s way, but the netminder stood firm and helped guide the Jacks through the third and overtime.
In the shootout the Jackalopes benefited from a nice goal from Michael Sacco who pulled off a backhand-forehand-backhand deke and slid the puck in five-hold.
With the win, the Jackalopes have taken points out of every single game this season. They will look for the weekend sweep on Saturday night at 8:00
