Mission accomplished!

Trailing the Alaska Avalanche by five points entering a three-game series this weekend, the Tornado completed the sweep in impressive style Saturday night, rolling to an 8-2 victory in front of a raucous crowd of 3,733 at the DejaBlue Arena in Frisco’s Dr Pepper StarCenter.

The win, following a 10-4 triumph Thursday and a 5-1 outing Friday, moves Texas into the fourth and final playoff spot in the South Division, one point ahead of Alaska, as they outscored the Avalanche 23-7 in the three contests. The Tornado are now 8-3-0 over their last 11 games - all at home - while the Avalanche fell to their eighth straight defeat and are limping through a 2-11-1 stretch.

For the Tornado to deliver such dominating performances in their biggest series of the season made their accomplishment even sweeter.

“I just really liked the way that we competed the entire weekend,” Texas coach Dwight Mullins said. “I thought the first game of the three-game series was a little sloppy, we wound up lighting the lamp 10 times and then I thought last night and tonight, just great efforts. You look at the shot totals of the first two periods and it’s encouraging and we just wanted to stick to the plan.”

Once again, the Tornado received offensive contributions from up and down their lineup, displaying the outstanding depth of their forward unit, as six different players scored goals. Texas outshot Alaska 56-18 on the night, setting another season-high in shots, surpassing the 52 they accumulated on Thursday.

“You look at our lineup and we have to be as deep as anybody up front,” Mullins said. “Hopefully, we can continue to get those kinds of efforts and those kinds of commitments. We’ve got four solid lines that we can put in, and even the kids that aren’t having the opportunity to get into the game are quality players. By no means are we out of the woods, but it sure is fun to be here tonight.”

Sam Goodwin led the way with two goals and two assists, Brian Sheehan also scored twice, and captain Sean Roadhouse and Mike Cifelli each added one goal and one assist. Andrew Blazek collected three assists, while defensemen Augie Hoffman and Troy Puente registered two assists each. Ryan Fuller and Sergei Korostin also lit the lamp.

“It’s great, especially after a three-game weekend, you win all three and then on top of that, you go ahead of them in the standings into a playoff spot, it’s pretty nice,” said Goodwin, who completed the three-game set with four goals and eight points. “The last three games, they kind of gave us a push in the beginning, but we came together pretty well and pushed right back and got the result we wanted.”

After falling behind early in each of the first two contests, this time the Tornado were able to seize the early lead, but still found themselves trailing 2-1 midway through the second period, despite enjoying a large territorial - and shots on goal - advantage. But the Tornado persevered, erupting with four goals in the final seven minutes of the second to take over the game and never looked back.

Tied 1-1 going into the second period despite outshooting Alaska 16-4 in the first, Texas continued to press early on. Cifelli, back in the lineup with Adam Mitchell resting a minor knee injury, sped into the Avalanche zone and fired a quick wrist shot from the right face-off circle, but Alaska starting goaltender Dusan Sidor made the save.

About 45 seconds after that, Sidor made back-to-back big stops on Ben Van Lare’s point-blank wrist shot, and then on Blazek’s subsequent wrap-around attempt.

Another 30 seconds later, Fuller launched a wrist shot from the slot, but Sidor came up with a blocker save.

The Tornado then seemed to take the lead about six minutes in, but with a delayed penalty in effect, Roadhouse batted home a rebound in front of Sidor, but the whistle blew as soon as Sidor stopped Van Lare’s wrist shot from the right face-off circle, even though he never controlled the puck.

Just a minute and a half after that, the Avalanche pulled ahead 2-1, on Nick Kelly’s first goal of the season. On a play very similar to Roadhouse’s game-opening goal, Dylan Jones intercepted a clearing attempt along the right sideboards, then fired a quick wrist shot from just above the goal line in the right corner. Although Texas goalie Tommy Callaghan made the initial save, the rebound ricocheted out into the slot, where a charging Kelly blasted it past Callaghan at 7:30.

So although the Tornado were outshooting the Avalanche 22-7 at the time, they trailed 2-1. And then Alaska went on the power play, and Callaghan was called upon to make a huge save 1:12 after their go-ahead goal as he robbed Kyle Pichler’s one-timer from the slot after Alex Young fed him from behind the net.

Two minutes later, with Texas on a power play of their own, Sidor made a nice stop on Roadhouse’s one-timer from just inside the blue line to preserve the Alaska lead.

Then the Tornado broke through with somewhat of a fluky goal, and that seemed to open the floodgates and sap the Avalanche’s spirit. Sheehan sped into the Alaska zone carrying the puck, and looked to slide a pass across to a hard-charging Jason Zawacki on the left side, but the puck deflected off an Avalanche defenseman’s stick and bounced over Sidor’s glove into the upper corner of the net, evening the score with 6:51 left in the second period.

“I think that we just wanted to continue to encourage the guys to stay to the process,” Coach Mullins said of the mindset on the bench midway through the period. “It was just a matter of time. We have all gone through situations like that and those are the bounces of the game. You could feel it on our bench, that if we could just get going... I think the first Sheehan goal, that goal really buckled them and then from that point, we were just rolling.”
Indeed, that was the turning point of the game, as Sidor, with the outstanding performance he was putting together up to that point, seemed to have his bubble burst and the Tornado grabbed the momentum and kept pressuring.

Just 1:07 later, Korostin, the Dallas Stars’ third-round draft pick last June who joined the Tornado last weekend, posted his third goal in three games to give Texas a 3-2 lead. After Sidor stopped Hoffman’s slap shot from the blue line, Korostin picked up the loose rebound in front, and while skating backwards away from the net, managed to flip it up and over the prone Sidor.

Goodwin then scored on a fabulous individual effort with 3:03 remaining in the period to extend the lead to two. Seconds after exiting the penalty box, Goodwin corralled the puck in the neutral zone, then raced into Alaska territory 1-on-2. As he cut across the slot, Goodwin used the two defenders as a screen, then launched wicked wrist shot that beat Sidor on the blocker side.

“He’s just really matured into a great hockey player at this level,” Mullins said of Goodwin. “He’s going to do nothing but get better. He’s a product of finding his way through the first half of the season, and now it’s paying dividends for us.”

The Tornado continued to attack and although Sidor made a nice glove save on Blazek’s wrist shot from the high slot with 2:08 to go, Fuller recorded his 13th goal of the season with 1:51 on the clock to complete the four-goal barrage. Camped in front of the net, Fuller managed to get his stick on John Kruse’s wrist shot and deflect it past Sidor.

Sidor did make a couple impressive stops with 30 seconds remaining, denying John Bullis’ slap shot from the top of the right circle, and then thwarting Blazek on the rebound in front.

With a commanding 5-2 lead entering the third period, the Tornado did not let up and continued applying the pressure, pushing the lead to four on Goodwin’s second of the night and 13th of the year just 3:22 in. After Roadhouse stole the puck along the right sideboards just inside the Alaska blue line, he feathered a nice cross-ice pass to Goodwin in the high slot, and his resulting wrist shot beat Sidor just under the glove.

“It was kind of working out tonight, it makes it pretty easy to play when that happens,” Goodwin said of his big night. “It was a good night, I had a lot of fun.”

That goal signaled the end of Sidor’s night, as he was pulled after stopping 33 of 39 shots in 43:22. Nathan Corey, who played well Friday night, entered the net and was immediately forced to make several tough saves, including a one-timer from the high slot by Korostin.

The Avalanche had a golden opportunity to trim the deficit 7:40 into the third, as Sean Ranum raced into the Texas zone on a shorthanded breakaway, but Callaghan made a glove save on his point-blank wrist shot. Despite going long stretches without seeing any action, Callaghan played a strong game, making 16 saves for his 12th victory.

Then with Alaska on a power play, Cifelli connected for his fourth goal of the season, a shorthander, at 11:33, a play that Callaghan even earned an assist on. Goodwin set it up as he fed Cifelli into the neutral zone, and Cifelli outraced an Avalanche defender to go in alone on Corey. Cifelli then unleashed a scorching wrist shot from the slot that appeared to either hit the crossbar or the bar at the top back of the net and ricochet out quickly. Despite Corey’s protests that it didn’t go in, the goal judge turned on the red light and the referee signaled it a goal, so that made it 7-2.

But the Tornado still were not done, as they continued to press. Corey made a nice save on Puente’s wrist shot from the top of the left circle with 6:17 left. Corey finished with 15 saves on 17 shots in just 16:38 of game time.

Jones had a good chance 13 seconds later, as he charged the net, cutting across the top of the crease before flipping a quick shot on goal, but Callaghan turned it aside.

Sheehan then put the exclamation point on the weekend with his second of the night and fourth of the season with 5:26 left. Zawacki carried into the right corner, then fired the puck on net from a sharp angle, and Sheehan, camped at the left post, popped home the loose puck.

Unlike the first two games of this series, the Tornado stormed out of the gates and dominated play in the first half of the opening period, generating numerous scoring chances in the first several minutes.

Zawacki initiated the first big opportunity, carrying into the Alaska zone on a 2-on-1 before sliding a pass from low in the left circle across to Cifelli, but Sidor managed to get the paddle of his stick down to deflect the puck out into the slot, where it was cleared away.

Sidor also made a big save on Korostin’s wrist shot off the rush 5:18 into the first period, and then came up with a nice shoulder stop 15 seconds later on Roadhouse’s wrist shot from the slot on a 2-on-1 rush.

The Tornado finally got on the scoreboard when Roadhouse recorded his 10th of the season with 6:31 remaining in the period. After Blazek carried into the low left circle, his sharp-angle wrist shot pinballed off Sidor’s stick and out into the slot, where a charging Roadhouse blasted a one-timer past Sidor’s blocker.

Alaska evened the score with 1:46 left in the first as Dustin Skinner connected for his eighth of the year. After Tyler Currier intercepted a bad Texas clearing pass just inside the Tornado blue line, he slid a quick pass over to a charging Joe Harren in the middle, who then fed Skinner in the right circle. Skinner’s quick wrist shot then beat Callaghan to give the Avalanche a 1-1 tie going into the second, even though the Tornado outplayed them and outshot them 16-4.

For the Tornado to pass Alaska for fourth place may have been hard to envision back in early December, when they were in the midst of a miserable nine-game losing streak and 1-15-2 stretch, but they turned their season around in mid-December when the began their current 15-game homestand. They continue with four more contests at the DejaBlue Arena starting next Thursday night at 7:30 pm against Kenai River, a team that was once ahead of them in the standings but is now 11 points back (watch or listen to Tommy Daniels and myself with the call of the game on b2 networks).

“To be really honest with you, I’m just real happy for the guys, especially the guys who have been here since the start of training camp, to go through all the things that we’ve gone through,” Coach Mullins said. “By no means are we done, but we also have been waiting for this moment and this opportunity for a long time and we’ve gone through a lot of hard times. It’s been very tough on everybody.”

Now that they have reached their initial goal of attaining a playoff spot in the standings, the Tornado have much more to accomplish. With 14 games remaining in the regular season, including those next four over the next two weekends at home, Texas hopes to continue moving forward, while playing their best hockey of the season.

“We enjoy this for two days, we really do,” Mullins said. “For the adversity that we went through, these guys deserve the opportunity to enjoy this for a couple of days. They don’t need to hear from me or Coach Ludwig or anything, they need to enjoy this for a couple of days and then let’s just see where we can take this thing. I think it really gives us a lot of life and a lot of spark and if we manage it and we make it productive, who knows by the end of the day where we’re at? We’re excited about where we’re headed

“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

THREE STARS

3. Augie Hoffman, Texas (two assists, +3, solid defense)
2. Andrew Blazek, Texas (three assists, +3, six shots on goal)
1. Sam Goodwin, Texas (two goals, two assists, +4, four shots on goal)

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