Pete Rouleau skates by after scoring the Brahmas' third goal of the night

Brahmas take command, shut out Jacks 3-1

Jackalopes start emergency goaltender

The Texas Brahmas shut out the Odessa Jackalopes in a 3-0 victory at the Ector County Coliseum on Tuesday night. The win gave the Brahmas a 2-1 lead in the best of seven series which will send the victor to the Ray Miron President's Cup Championship.

Brahmas goaltender Brett Jaeger stopped all 33 of the Jack's shots to earn his sixth playoff win. Jaeger has stopped 75 of 76 shots in the series, thus far.

Meanwhile, Odessa chose to start emergency goaltender Jeremy Symington, who was added to the post-season roster after injuries sidelined starter Juha Toivonen and backup Alexandre Vincent.

The Jackalopes managed to control the tempo of the game and outshot the Brahmas 33-18 but they were unable to beat Jaeger. Head coach Paul Gillis was dissatisfied with his team's play.

"We didn't battle hard enough; we weren't willing to pay the price," Gillis told the Odessa American. "We didn't get any second chances, we controlled a majority of the play, we got 33 shots and we didn't get a goal. As far as I'm concerned, that's not battling hard enough."

The Brahmas scored their first goal almost immediately when Jason Deitsch intercepted the puck after it bounced off the end boards at the left post and pushed it into the net, beating an out of position Symington. At :24, the Brahmas led 1-0.

The Brahmas added another tally at the 18:39 mark when Brandon Benedict scored on a redirect from defenseman Justin Kinnunen. Benedict's shot gave the Brahmas the 2-0 lead with 1:21 left in the period. Jason Deitsch was also credited with the assist.

The Jacks outshot the Brahmas 15-7 in the opening period and 12-8 in the scoreless middle frame.

The Brahmas' Pete Rouleau added the final goal just 1:18 into the third period. Skating left to right in front of the crease, Rouleau lifted the puck with his stick and flipped it right over the left shoulder of Symington to seal the final score at 3-0. It was Rouleau's third goal in the post-season.

Brett Jaeger earned the win, stopping all 33 shots faced.

Neither team scored on power play opportunities. The Brahmas went 0 for 3 and the Jacks went 0 for 6. The Brahmas penalty killers have been perfect in the series, preventing Odessa from capitalizing on 19 chances with the man-advantage.

The 3rd star of the game went to Odessa's Jean Borbeau for no apparent reason that I can tell, other than me made four shots . The 2nd star went to the Brahmas' Jason Deitsch who had a goal and an assist on the night and the 1st star went to Brahmas netminder Brett Jaeger for the second game in a row.

Brahmas head coach Dan Wildfong made sure to point out that the shut out was a group effort.

"I've got to credit the whole team on this," Wildfong said. "Jaegs, I'm sure will credit the whole team too. He really works at his game and when you work at your game and you have great defense like we do and good forwards, it makes it easier on the goalie but when we need those big saves, Jaegs is making them. He's making big saves at critical times. Other than that, most of the shots were from the outside so you've got to give credit to our defense. Then our forwards are playing pretty hard, so you have to give credit to them. There's a lot of credit to give for a shut out."

You can view the box score here

You can view my photos from the game here

Game four of the series will resume on Thursday evening at 7:05pm CST. For those not making the trip, there will be another game watching party at Zuroma's at the NYTEX Sports Centre.

Photo Credit: Robert Keith