A late comeback attempt fell short, leaving the Texas Tornado with a disappointing loss in their regular season finale, but there were plenty of positives to take from the game heading into the playoffs.

After rallying from a 4-1 third period deficit, the Tornado were unable to pull it off in the end and dropped a 5-3 decision to the Topeka Roadrunners Friday night at the DejaBlue Arena inside the Dr Pepper StarCenter in Frisco.

With the win, Topeka clinched the South Division championship, and therefore, a first-round post-season matchup with the Tornado, a best-of-five series which begins next Friday night (April 4) in Topeka. The Tornado completed the regular season with defeats in their last five actual games (not including the Pros vs. Prospects outing last week), including three to the Roadrunners by a combined score of 14-3.

But the good news is, the Tornado played quite well for long stretches of this contest, and in the process, perhaps discovered the way they might be able to beat Topeka in the playoffs.

One of the things they will have to do is stay out of the penalty box, as the Roadrunners scored four of their five of their goals on power plays, capitalizing on both ends of a 5-on-3 advantage late in the second period to take over the contest. Overall, Topeka was 4-for-8 with the extra man.

“I think that the biggest thing was, we talked about some things we needed to do to beat this hockey team and when we did those, they worked and (the Roadrunners) were having some trouble,” Texas coach Dwight Mullins said. “I think when we crossed the line from being disciplined to undisciplined, we took ourselves out of the hockey game. I think we can learn from that as well. The bottom line is, the season is over and everybody starts on a fresh slate in the morning and that’s what we have to look forward to.”

After being shut out twice in a row earlier in the month, the Tornado battled hard and generated some offense, finally getting some pucks behind Roadrunner netminder Bryce Merriam. Andrew Blazek, Sam Goodwin and Mike Cifelli scored the goals for Texas.

Things started well, and for a while, it looked like the Tornado were in control, leading 1-0 midway through the second, but things unraveled over the last eight minutes of the period, as the contest took on a particularly aggressive tone. Unfortunately for Texas, after a couple of fights and many scrums after whistles, they continually wound up with the extra guy in the penalty box and surrendered four goals, three on power plays, before the intermission.

“Those are going to be the differences, especially now, at every level - special teams,” Mullins pointed out. “Yes, you’re going to take penalties, but you better make sure that when you’re doing it, it’s for the right cause. I thought tonight, we really started to feed off the energy in the building and we started making some bad choices in terms of taking our aggressiveness beyond productivity.”

After a scoreless first period in which they were outshot 11-3 but played better than that margin might indicate, the Tornado came out flying in the second. Blazek had the first good opportunity of the period two minutes in after Ben Van Lare fed him a pass on a 3-on-1 break and Blazek ripped a wrist shot from the slot that just missed the upper left corner of the net.

Texas then jumped on top at 7:16 of the second when the Tornado cashed in on a power play of their own. Tyler Bowman’s wrist shot from the left point went wide, but ricocheted quickly off the end boards behind the net to Blazek just off the right post, and he quickly fired it home on the short side, past a sliding Merriam. It was Blazek’s ninth goal of the season and the Tornado’s first goal against Merriam in over 147 minutes in March.

The game then turned on a sequence that occurred at 8:59 of the second, when John Bullis raced in on a shorthanded breakaway. He sped in on Merriam and made a nice deke and slid the puck past the netminder, but great hustle by Topeka defenseman Caleb Wolfgram allowed him to knock the puck out of the crease as it was heading for the net. Then following a collision behind the goal, Bullis and Wolfgram squared off in a fight, which eventually resulted in both players being ejected from the contest.

“He’s a third-year player, he’s an older player, he needs to play on the edge, but he can’t step over,” Mullins said of Bullis. “I really believe that at that point, when we lost him, it was hard to regain. He brings a lot of energy to our hockey club, but it needs to be productive energy and we need him in the hockey game to be successful.”

After coming so agonizingly close to taking a 2-0 lead, instead the Tornado found themselves down two men for a full two minutes at 11:50 after both Augie Hoffman and Blake O’Connor challenged Topeka’s Reed Seckel after Seckel crunched Tornado forward Johnnie Searfoss with a particularly devastating bodycheck.

It took the Roadrunners just 28 seconds to capitalize and tie the game. Jordan George made the play by carrying off the left sideboards, through the face-off circle and charging the net before sliding a slick backhand pass across the slot to a wide open Josh Kamrass at the right edge of the crease. Kamrass chipped it up and over a sliding Tommy Callaghan for the equalizer.

With Topeka still enjoying a man-advantage, Kamrass scored again, his 23rd of the season, just 32 seconds later for the 2-1 edge, as he whacked a bouncing puck in the slot over Callaghan, who was down on his stomach after stopping Seckel’s point-blank shot.

Then, after Goodwin was whistled for tripping with 4:10 left in the period, Topeka struck again, this time needing 52 seconds of power play time before Seckel scored his first of two on the night. Callaghan made a nice skate save on Eric Artman’s wrist shot from the top of the right circle, but the rebound bounced right to Seckel in the slot, and he quickly banged it home for a 3-1 Roadrunner lead.

It was just 35 seconds after that when Topeka made it 4-1, on John Stoddard’s sixth goal of the year. As the Roadrunners carried into the Tornado zone, Colin Smith fed a nice pass back from deep in the left circle to Stoddard trailing in the high slot and the Topeka captain drilled a one-timer past Callaghan.

That goal prompted Coach Mullins to pull Callaghan, who was outstanding in the first period and finished the contest with 19 saves on 23 shots. Matt Pombo entered the net and performed quite well himself, stopping nine out of 10 shots in 22:52.

Mullins coyly hinted he might be tempted to start Pombo in Game 1 of the playoffs after how well he - and the team - played from that point on.

“To be really honest with you, I think that Matt Pombo has really given the coaching staff something to think about and consider, the way that the team kind of rallied in front of him,” Mullins said. “To be completely honest, I want to take a day or two here just to absorb what we’re doing, but it might not be out of the realm and we wouldn’t be the first team that kind of maybe tried to do something that was unexpected that maybe steals you a game.”

Entering the final period trailing 4-1, one might have thought the Tornado would just play out the string, but they clawed their way back into it.

Goodwin pulled them to within 4-2 at 7:16 of the third on the Tornado’s second power play goal of the night. John Kruse controlled the puck along the right sideboards, drove the net with it and then feathered a pass across the top of the crease to Goodwin at the left post. Goodwin actually fanned on his first attempt to slam it home, but kept with it and knocked it in on the second attempt for his 21st goal of the year.

The Tornado kept buzzing and Cifelli connected for his seventh of the season at 10:56 to make it a one-goal game again. Troy Puente set the play up, controlling at the left point and weaving his way into the left circle with a nifty move before dishing a nice backhand pass to Cifelli low in the left circle. Cifelli blasted a sharp-angle one-timer past Merriam on the short side to make it 4-3.

Texas kept pressing, but with 5:54 remaining, Cifelli was sent to the penalty box for slashing, and once again, the Roadrunners cashed in on the resulting power play. This time, they needed just 29 seconds, as Corey Jendras, who finished the night with three assists, fed Seckel to send him in on a breakaway. Seckel made a nice deke, going backhand to forehand before sliding it past Pombo for his 22nd of the season and pretty much clinching the victory for Topeka.

The Tornado continued to apply offensive pressure in the Roadrunners’ zone for most of the rest of regulation, pulling Pombo for an extra attacker with 1:10 left, but were unable to get another one past Merriam.

“It’s a credit to what we talked about, the things we needed to do to be able to beat the hockey team and when we do that, we’re fine,” Mullins said of the near-comeback. “Again, it was another penalty that really cost us that opportunity to push. We’re headed to a world now where it’s going to come down to your discipline, your special teams and your goaltender and outside of that, you’ve got to have that to have a chance to win.”

Now the focus turns towards the post-season, and now that they know their opponent will be Topeka, the Tornado can formulate their game plan. As Coach Mullins indicated, this game showed them the blueprint for how they can beat the Roadrunners, if they can just stick to the script and execute it for a full 60 minutes.

“Tonight was a great avenue for us to learn what we can and can’t do heading into next week,” Mullins said. “Yes, it was our goal to win the hockey game, but it was also our goal to begin to put a plan in place should we meet them down the road, and it looks like we are.”

It all begins next weekend with the slate wiped clean.

THREE STARS

3. Andrew Blazek, Texas (one goal, three shots on goal)
2. Corey Jendras, Topeka (three assists, four shots on goal)
1. Reed Seckel, Topeka (two goals, one assist, three shots on goal)

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