Central Hockey League: Jackalopes find revenge against Rapid City

In a pair of games against the Rapid City Rush in February, the Odessa Jackalopes twice squandered a pair of leads and ended up losing both contests in the Black Hills.

On Tuesday night, the Rush made their inaugural appearance in the Permian Basin and on this night, the Jackalopes were giving up nothing.

Collin Circelli scored a pair of goals and goaltender Joel Martin stopped all 28 shots he faced as Odessa skated away with a dominating 3-0 victory in front of 3,179 at the Ector County Coliseum.

Kory Karlander also scored for the Jackalopes, who improved to 43-11-4 on the season and pulled within four points of clinching the Southern Conference title. Also, in the race with Rapid City (40-13-5) for the top spot in the league, the Jackalopes now have a five-point cushion (90-85) with six games remaining in the regular season.

Sebastien Thinel finished with a pair of assists and has scored at least two points in 14 of the past 17 games.

“I thought that was our most complete effort in some time,” Jackalopes coach Paul Gillis said. “We took our foot off the gas a little in the second period, but other than that I thought it was a very good effort.

“I thought we came out with tons of energy, which I appreciated. We were actually a little quiet before the game, a little quiet this morning, but hey, whatever it takes for them to be ready.”

The Jackalopes now embark on their final regular-season road trip, with a pair of games in Independence, Mo., on Friday and Saturday against the Mavericks.

The Mavericks are battling for the fifth playoff spot in the Northern Conference and Karlander, who netted his 300th career goal Tuesday night, is happy for the competition heading toward the playoffs.

“Missouri is tough and they have a very good team and a lot of things to play for, so we are going to have to be ready for sure,” Karlander said. “It’s going to keep us focused and working hard to win and we have a lot of things to play for, the regular-season title and also home ice throughout the playoffs, so these games are big.”

Odessa scored the only goal that Martin would need just before the midway point of the first period on a pair of nice individual efforts by Jeff Pierce and Circelli.

Taking a pass from Thinel at the top of the right circle, Pierce worked through traffic before pushing the puck toward the net as he was going to the ice. Circelli then swooped in, gathered the puck above the right post and went across the crease to slide the puck behind Rush goaltender Danny Battochio at the 9:30 mark.

Thinel then used some pinpoint passing on the power play for the Jackalopes’ second goal of the night.

Battling for the puck in the right corner, Thinel was able to work his way into the right circle and then flipped the puck on net just in time for it to deflect off Circelli and inside the right post with 11:52 gone in the period.

It was the 19th consecutive game with a power-play goal for Odessa and Thinel and Circelli were laughing about it afterward.

“I got it a little high,” Thinel said, smiling.

“I don’t know, I just looked and it went off my arm and in,” Circelli said. “It was a bit lucky, but we’ll take it.”