Jacks Continue to Struggle Early in Season

Hello fellow Jackalope fans!  It's been a while since I last blogged, and to be completely honest with all of you, you haven't missed much when it comes to the Jacks.  The Jackalopes continue to struggle, as they lost both games to the RGV Killer Bees this past weekend, one game in a shootout, and the other game in regulation.  Their record now sits at an embarrassing 2-6-1 as they are currently tied for seventh place in the Berry Conference with five total points.  Normally I would give a recap of this past weekends games, but I really don't feel like reliving a couple of losses, so if you are interested in getting a recap of the games, please visit the Odessa Jackalopes website.  What I will address in this post, however, is what I personally think is wrong with this team that is stacked with talent, and perhaps what can be done to fix it.  Now, I'm definitely not claiming to be any kind of hockey expert (because I'm far from it) but I will give a fans perspective of what I feel is wrong with the team.  I'm also not questioning Coach Gillis in any way, so please don't take what I'm posting as an insult towards Gillis.  I would never question the decisions made by a former NHLer that also has championship experience as a minor league hockey head coach.  With that said, lets go ahead and dive right into the mess of a team the Jackalopes are so far.

  Lets start by talking about goaltending.  I don't think anybody would deny that Martin got off to a very shaky start when returning to the Jacks from Bridgeport.  He has, however, rebounded nicely, and he is definitely not the problem with the Jacks right now.  The Jacks also signed Michel Robinson to a five game contract, and I do believe that he will be signed to a full contract as I have been impressed with his play (so far) in between the pipes for the Jacks.  I think he will be a solid backup for Martin, and I also think he will keep Martin on his toes, so to speak, by making sure that Martin doesn't get too comfortable know that he is the Jacks number one goalie.  As I already said, though, I don't think goaltending is the Jacks problem right now, and I'm more than confident that Joel and Michel will be able to hold their own in net for the Jacks throughout the season.

  Now that we have discussed goaltending, lets move on to the Jacks offense.  The Jackalopes first line of Thinel/Robinson/Leveille has been great so far, but the second and third lines need to start scoring more, especially considering the talent that is on these lines.  As I have said before in previous posts, our third line should be more productive than many teams first lines based on talent alone, but that definitely has not been the case so far this season.  Guys like Jeff Pierce, Mike Ramsay, and Kenny Corupe need to live up to their potential, and start finding ways to get the puck in the back of the net.  The reason I am singling out these three guys is because I know what they can do, and they (at least so far) have not played like they are capable of playing.  This brings me to another point when it comes to the offense.  The Jacks are lacking a gritty forward this season (with Bootland being an exception) and I honestly believe the Jacks need another tough, gritty forward or two to get this offense rolling.  You never know how vital guys like Swiniarski and Bourbeau are to your team until you lose them, and it is very obvious that this team needs to toughen up and toughen up fast.  If the Jacks do end up getting Bourbeau back from Bridgeport some time this season, I truly believe that that would help our team our tremendously.  But, apparently Bourbs has really been impressing the coaching staff of the Sound Tigers, and we wish him all the best in the AHL.

  Now that we have addressed the Jacks offense, lets finally move to what I feel has been the Jacks main problem this season... the defense.  To be totally blunt, the Jackalope defense has been very bad so far in this young season.  What appeared to be one of the top defenses in the offseason on paper turned out to be a major problem so far for the Jacks.  Now I know the Jacks are missing their best defenseman and captain in Dave Van Drunen, but the team is still too talented to be playing how they have been so far.  However, it will be a huge relief once Van Drunen is able to return to the team as he is our best defenseman, leader, and is also very tough on the opposition.  He is greatly missed, and we wish him a speedy recovery.  Now lets move on to the rest of our defense.  Before I go any further, I was very tempted to name every single defenseman and give my opinion on how I feel they have performed so far this season.  In fact, I just had to delete a lot of what I already typed, but after really thinking about it, I decided a true fan would not single out every defenseman on the team and basically bash them on a blog.  While I may be disappointed with how many of them have performed this season, I have ultimately decided not to single out specific players.  What I will say is that our defense has been slow, has let the opposing team skate right by them on odd man rushes and even breakaways, and has been the Jacks main problem this season.  That's as far as I will go on that subject, and finally I will address the Jacks special teams.  The Jacks have went from having the leagues top power play unit and one of the top penalty kill units last season, to having the third worst power play and second worst penalty unit so far this season.  It is just perplexing how poorly our special teams have performed this season, and hopefully they will begin to turn things around in the very near future.

  Now that I have vented and let everybody know how I feel about the Jackalopes as of now, I will close in saying that I will support this team when they are winning as well as when they are losing.  I consider myself a die-hard fan, and I don't know what I would do without Odessa Jackalopes hockey.  I would also like to add that I still have faith in the team, coaches, GM, etc.  This team will start moving in the right direction eventually (hopefully very soon), and that is something that I am very confident about.  I am going to go ahead and wrap things up here, and hopefully I will blog again some time this upcoming weekend with news that the Jacks have got back to their winning ways.


Until next time Jackalope fans all I have to say is GO JACKS GO!!! and lets get a winning streak started this weekend when we take on the Brahmas and Americans!