Lee Scheide says: Gillis has pulled the right strings for the Jacks this season

Odessa Jackalopes coach Paul Gillis has taken the time over the past two seasons to try to fit the right pieces of the puzzle together to give his team its best chance to be successful on the ice each night.

Whether in goal, on the blue line or up front, Gillis constantly is looking for the right combination of talent and character that will put team goals ahead of individual accolades, knowing that success by the former leads to notoriety with the latter.

It’s not been a completely pleasant journey, the disappointment of a Southern Conference semifinal loss to Laredo in 2008 setting changes in motion for the 2008-2009 season.

Last year, a Game 7 loss to the Texas Brahmas in conference finals set Gillis off on another search to bring back the necessary players and add one or two others to the mix to complement the personnel already in the Permian Basin.

Because of that diligence, Gillis has achieved success on the ice in the form of the best record in the Central Hockey League heading into Wednesday’s contest with the Arizona Sundogs.

The biggest by-product, though, has been the depth of talent on the Jackalopes roster this season.

With their 40th game of the season scheduled for Saturday night in Arizona, the Jackalopes have 10 players with at least 20 points on the season, led by Dominic Leveille’s 51, with eight of the players having scored more than 30 points thus far.

So deep is the scoring on this year’s Odessa squad that the goaltenders — Juha Toivonen and Joel Martin — have combined for eight assists (5 and 3, respectively).

That kind of balanced output gives Gillis just what he needs to be competitive on a nightly basis because with so many players capable of finding the back of the net, it’s difficult for opposing coaches to shut down the Jackalopes for 60 minutes.

Time and again this season, Odessa has seen teams battle back to tie games or take the lead, then have answered right back.

The most recent occurrence came in Corpus Christi when the Jackalopes scored a pair of third-period goals in the final six minutes to defeat the IceRays in a game that Corpus Christi controlled much of the way.

Those results make facing the Jackalopes that much tougher because not only are they a very good hockey team, they are getting the bounces, too.

>> FUTURE STARS: The Junior Jackalopes Bantam A team traveled to Darien, Illinois, just outside Chicago, this past weekend to participate in “The Cross Roads” tournament at the Darien Sportsplex and came away with a runner-up finish to the Junior Everblades, of Estero, Fla.

The Junior Jacks lost their opening game of pool play 3-0 to the Springfield (Ill.) Kings and then defeated the 96 Sylvania Maple Leafs 7-1 in the second game.

Sunday’s final pool-play contest had Odessa winning 2-0 over the Naperville (Ill.) Sabres to advance to face the Kings for a second time. This time, the Junior Jackalopes prevailed 4-2 to set up Monday’s 8:30 a.m. championship game against Florida.