Spokane Chiefs Tyler Johnson has beennamed the Western Hockey League Player of the Month for February after scoring 24 points (including 10 goals) as the Chiefs went 11-2.

For more information on Johnson and the Chiefs, read the extended entry.

For the season the Central Valley grad has 31 goals and 32 assists in 57 games.

Goalie James Reid won the award for November.

It was a good month for Chiefs. Johnson's total was one more than Mitch Wahl and two more than Kyle Beach. Wahl is sixth in the league scoring racing with 85 points (28 g, 57 assists), 10 behind Regina's Jordan Eberle. Beach leads the league in goals with 48, three ahead of Eberle. Wahl's 57 assists are third, six behind Brandon Kozun of Calgary. Beach is first with 11 game-winning goals, sixth with 15 power play goals. Johnson is third in first goals with 8. Jared Spurgeon is fourth in power play assists with 29, five behind the leader, despite missing the first 20 games with an injury. Reid is fourth in the league with a 2.45 goals-against average.

That helped lift Spokane into fourth place in the Western Division at 40-21-3- 1 for 84 points, three points behind Everett for the third seed in the playoffs and seven behind Tri-City for the top seed in a heated battle among U.S. Division rivals. Portland is one point behind Spokane but has played one more game.

Vancouver, leader of the B.C. Division with 83 points, is guaranteed a top-two seed as a division winner.

There are seven games left in the regular season. The Chiefs play at Kelowa Wednesday, Portland Friday and Seattle Saturday while the B Tournament is in town. They end the season next week with Kelowna here on Tuesday, Tri-City here Friday, at Tri-City on Saturday and Everett here Sunday.

Here are the home stretch schedules, courtesy of Alan Caldwell's blog, which is a good place to visit to catch the Best of the East rankings. (Blue means 4-point division games.)

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