About Last Night

Coach Ruskowski is busy today, so I'm not going to be able to talk to him for my season-ending story until tomorrow. Thus, it will run in Friday's paper.

What I can tell you now is mostly what you already know: losing Jeff Bes had a huge impact on this team, Ruskowski does not blame his goaltending at all for his team's shortcomings this season and it is going to be a long offseason.

I had to write two versions of my story last night so one could run early for the out-of-town editions, but I don't think there's any internet proof of that one out there.

My final story, which was the one with quotes, can be found here.

Just for kicks, here's that first one:

Jackalopes end Bucks' season with OT win

Russ Moyer scored 5:48 into overtime during Game 6 of the Southern Conference Semifinals to give the Odessa Jackalopes a 4-3 win and end the Laredo Bucks’ season.

The Jackalopes defeated the Bucks by a series score of 4-2, knocking them out of the playoffs prior to the conference finals for the first time in team history.

It was also the first time Laredo had lost a series in which it got out to a 2-0 lead, as Odessa recovered from two games down to sweep the next four games and win the series.

For the fourth time in the series and third straight time at the LEC, the Bucks and Jackalopes ended regulation tied to bring the game into overtime.

Laredo had led for nearly six minutes late in the third period on a dramatic goal by Alex Goupil, but Odessa kept its chance to clinch alive when Dominic Leveille grabbed the rebound of a shot by CHL MVP Sebastien Thinel and sent it past Centomo to tie the game with just 34.2 seconds left on the clock.

The Jackalopes had jumped out to an early lead in the first period as Leveille grabbed a loose puck and flipped it over Centomo, who was still sprawled out from a previous save on Thinel, just 3:11 into the game. Moyer, a defenseman, had the other assist.

On the next Odessa power play, Brent Cullaton and Shawn Snider took advantage of a bad pass within the Jackalopes’ defensive zone to tie the game on Snider’s shorthanded goal at 12:32.

But before the period ended, another Odessa advantage led to another goal for the Jacks, this time with Phillippe Plante doing the honors and Thinel and Moyer once again assisting.

The Bucks didn’t strike back for that goal until 13:46 in the third period when Jason Dixon scored his first goal at the most opportune time to tie the game and bring some life to the Laredo squad.

Goupil’s goal came 13:46 into the third period when he slammed home a loose puck with Odessa netminder Juha Toivonen out of his net. Matt Miller was credited with the lone assist.

The Jackalopes pulled Toivonen during a late power play created by a tripping call on Steve Weidlich, and Laredo hit the post on an empty-net attempt before Leveille tied it to momentarily silence the crowd of 3,950.

They got right back into it when the overtime began but quickly lost enthusiasm again as Odessa began to dominate play.

As had been the case the entire night, Centomo kept the Bucks alive, setting aside several shots before his team truly threatened in the other end.

Notes: Leveille and Thinel assisted on the game-winner. … Centomo saved 33 of 37 shots to take the loss, while Toivonen stopped 22 of 25 to earn his fourth straight win against Laredo. … The Jackalopes were 2-for-7 on the power play, while the Bucks were 0-for-3, scoring their only special teams goal shorthanded. ... Laredo swept Odessa in the same round last season.

I don't have a whole lot of leftover quotes from last night because Ruskowski obviously wasn't in his most talkative mood and Paul Gillis isn't very talkative in general, but I'll still share what I do have.

Ruskowski on Leveille's game-tying goal:
"Obviously it didn't do anything good for us. If you look back at the last two overtimes, they scored, and I guess in the back of everybody's mind is, 'If we make a mistake, they're going to score again,' and obviously they did. But obviously, if they didn't score that goal, then we wouldn't have had to go to overtime. It's a bitter pill to swallow, and I'm having trouble swallowing it."

On his goalie's play:
"I love my goalies. I think that I have probably the two best combination goalies in the league. They've kept us in more hockey games than I could ever imagine. For him to go out like that is a bitter pill for him to swallow also. But I think he's played tremendous all season long, and I can't say anything but good things about that."

On what he saw overall in the series:
"I think there's parts of our game that have to improve, and we're going to work on that during the summertime."

Gillis on his team's overtime play:
"We really wanted to be aggressive. We wanted to go after them; we didn't want to sit back. The first game in overtime, we lost because we turned the puck over too much in the neutral zone. We just wanted to play aggressively, get the puck deep and go to work on it."

On his team's road success:
"We've always said right from the beginning that no matter where we play we have to put our best foot forward and be ready to go. We never let them off the hook with road games. They have no excuses, and they have to go everywhere and try to win the game. We started right from the first game of the year, talking about that, and it paid off."

Obviously, there are a lot of things I'll be asking Ruskowski about tomorrow, from which vets he plans to keep to what he thinks the team's biggest flaws were this season now that it's all said and done to what type of players he's looking to bring in next year.

Though this is an incredibly early exit for the Bucks, I'd say seven postseason trips in seven years isn't the worst thing on earth.

But, of course, this long summer isn't going to sit well with Ruskowski or the players who plan to stick around. And, though I know his return would be a dream come true for the fans, I really hope Darryl Smith isn't one of those players.

And, as far as those amateurs Ruskowski was looking at...guess they'll have to try to find another place to play when their current teams get knocked out.

No CHL games tonight, and only two in the NHL, so this is more of a basketball and baseball evening, but I'll be sure to keep you posted on anything related to the Bucks that happens in the coming weeks, as well as the rest of the playoffs.