Hello fellow Jackalope fans! It is a warm, breezy Tuesday afternoon, and the Jacks are gearing up for arguably their biggest game of the season thus far. The Jacks will host the Northern Conference leading Rapid City Rush tonight at the Ector County Coliseum, with the teams only separated by three points in the league standings. The Jacks current record sits at 42-11-4 (88 pts.), while the Rush's record sits at 40-12-5 (85 pts). One thing is definitely for certain, the race for the CHL Governor's Cup will definitely go down to the wire. With all of this said, I actually have quite a bit to discuss in this post. I will recap the Jacks very good weekend, talk about the CHL's Best of the Best results, and talk a little more about tonight's game with Rapid City.
Lets start with this past weekends games. The Jacks defeated the Corpus Christi IceRays on Friday night at the ECC by a final of 5-3. The Jacks played pretty well in this game, but got a little too comfortable in the third period, which has definitely been a problem over the last few weeks. With that said, I was still very impressed with the Jacks play in this game, as they seemed much more aggressive and much more physical than in their previous few games. Lets go ahead and break down who scored for the Jacks, the play in net for the Jacks, as well as the Jacks special team numbers in this game. Congratulations to Jeff Pierce who had four points on the night (2G / 2A); congrats to Collin Circelli who had one goal and two assists in the game; congrats to Sebastien Thinel for finishing the night with three assists; congrats to Alex Dunn and Troy Ofukany who both finished the game with one goal a piece, and finally congrats to Dominic Leveille, Mike Ramsay, and Mike Lesperance who all finished with one assist a piece in the contest. Also, congratulations to Joel Martin who was very good in net. He stopped 30 of the 33 shots on goal that he faced, and picked up his 21st win of the season in this game. The Jacks power play was also very good, going 3-8 on the night, while the penalty kill killed off six of Corpus' eight man advantages.
Now lets move on to Saturday's contest between the Jacks and Bucks at the ECC. The Jacks won in comeback fashion, defeating Laredo by a final of 5-4 after an eleven round shootout. This night was especially special, as the Jacks entered former Jackalope head coach Don McKee into their Hall of Fame in a very nice pre-game ceremony. The Jacks were able to pull off yet another thrilling comeback in this game, as they were trailing by a score of 4-2 with just around seven minutes left in regulation. The Jacks were able to tie the game with two goals scored less than one minute apart, then forced overtime, and then eventually went to a shootout that went eleven rounds. Before I go any further, I must say that the Jacks played extremely well the entire game, and if it were not for Laredo's goalie Pelletier, this game could have easily been won by the Jacks by four or five goals. With that said, Dominic Leveille scored the first and last goals in the shootout for the Jacks, while Martin sealed the deal stopping Laredo forward Deschatelets in the eleventh round. Now lets go ahead and get to who scored for the Jacks, Martin's play in between the pipes, and the Jacks special team play. First, congrats to both Sebastien Thinel and Collin Circelli who each tallied one goal and one assist a piece on the night; congrats to Jeff Pierce who had two assists in the contest; congrats to Phil Plante, Mike Ramsay, and Dominic Leveille who each had one goal a piece in the game; and finally, congrats to Kory Karlander and Mike Lesperance who both finished the game with one assist a piece. Now lets move on to Martin's play in net for the Jacks. Lets just say that he did not have his best game, although he did make a few brilliant saves, including several in the shootout. Martin stopped 21 of the 25 Laredo shots that he faced, and stopped nine of the eleven Laredo shooters that he faced in the shootout. He picked up his 22nd win of the season, and appears to be emerging as the (dare I say) number one goalie for the Jacks. Don't get me wrong because I think we all know that Juha is more than just a backup, but Matt Cressman mentioned on the radio the other night that they were waiting for one of the goalies to take the bull by the horns, which apparently Martin has succeeded in doing. The Jacks still, in my honest opinion, have the best goaltending duo in the entire CHL by far. Finally, the Jacks power play went 2-6 on the night, while their penalty kill killed off five of the eight Buck man advantages.
Now that we have discussed the Jacks great weekend at the Jack Shack, lets go ahead and move on to the CHL's Best of the Best results. According to the results of this poll, Sebastien Thinel is the best playmaker in the CHL; Joel Martin is the best goaltender in the CHL; Collin Circelli is the most underrated player in the CHL; Sebby is the best player on the power play in the league; Dave Van Drunen is the best defensive defenseman in the CHL; Kory Karlander is better on face-offs than any other player in the league; and finally (and most importantly... jk) the Jacks have the best arena concessions in the CHL. The Jacks also finished in second and third in many other categories in the poll with Thinel being chosen as the second best stickhandler in the league; Mike Ramsay being the third best player on the power play in the CHL; Brian Swiniarski was voted as being the third best defensive forward in the CHL; Alex Dunn was chosen as the second best offensive defenseman in the league; Jean Bourbeau was selected as the second best bodychecker in the league; Paul Gillis was chosen as the second best (although I think we all know that he is the best) coach in the CHL; the Jacks were selected as the third hardest working team in the CHL; Brien Rea was chosen as the second best broadcaster in the CHL; the Jacks were selected as having the third best host hotel in the league; and finally, the Jacks have the third best booster club in the entire league according to the poll. All I can say is that I agree with the results of the entire poll, with one huge exception. I think Paul Gillis is by far the best coach in the entire CHL. It is crazy that he received more first place votes than any other coach in the poll, yet still finished second in the results. I would also like to point out that I was pleasantly surprised that Brien Rea was selected as the second best broadcaster in the league. The guy had huge shoes to fill a couple of seasons ago when he replaced the legendary Bob Hards as the voice of the Jacks, but I must say that he has filled those shoes very well. With all of this said, congrats to all of the Jacks that were recognized in the CHL Best of the Best poll!
Lastly, I would like to talk a little more about the Jack's game tonight against the Rapid City Rush. This will be the first time that the Rush have ever been to the ECC, and hopefully the Jacks will send them home with a big "L" in the win/loss column. The Jacks lost both games that they have played this season against the Rush, but both of those losses came in South Dakota after some "questionable" officiating and blown leads by the Jacks. The Jacks will definitely be looking for revenge tonight in their quest for the Governor's Cup, and the Jacks will also end their regular season hosting the Rush in what could be the deciding game on who will be the regular season CHL champs. With all of this said, I am going to go ahead and wrap things up here, and get ready for tonight's huge game between the Jacks and Rush.
Until next time Jack fans all I have to say is GO JACKS GO!!! and lets get some revenge against the Rush tonight!
Posts
