Chiefs beckon return of hockey gods

If there’s a positive lesson to embrace after Sunday’s poor performance gave the Spokane Chiefs a five-game losing streak, it’s that a winning streak could be just around the corner. Read story

Spokane Chiefs coach Don Nachbaur was blunt about the team’s performance after Sunday night’s game, saying that even if the players were fatigued from four games in five nights, “We showed something about ourselves and I didn’t like that part.”

But Nachbaur pointed out that Seattle’s first goal went off a Chiefs player’s skate and Spokane had a potential goal that hit Thunderbirds goalie Taran Kozun in the mask.

“When things aren’t going your way, you aren’t catching any breaks,” Nachbaur said. “The hockey gods are fair, though. You earn your breaks by your work ethic and your compete level. We didn’t do that. We got outworked in the first period and we didn’t deserve to be in it.”

Hockey, in other words, can be fickle. Spokane scored just 12 goals during its recent five-game winning streak but won four 2-1 games. Now Spokane had lost five consecutive games by scoring an average of just one less goal per game as it did during the winning streak.

With the Western Hockey League trade deadline about a month away, some Chiefs need to catch fire.

“The bottom line is, the only way weren’t going to win is if we outwork and outcompete teams, because we don’t have that high-end skill team right now,”  Nachbaur said.