Chiefs master one-goal wins
Eight of the Spokane Chiefs' 12 wins this WHL season have been by one goal. Sunday night continued the trend as Spokane won its third 2-1 game in three days. Read story
The Chiefs have also won two 3-2 games, two 4-3 games and one 5-4 game. Coach Don Nachbaur has known since August that his team would encounter many tightly contested games.
"We’ll take them any way we can get them," Nachbaur said. "We’re playing good defensively and getting great goaltending and with an injured 'D,' we’re finding ways to win. It’s a great character builder that we just went through. Like I’ve said from Day One, we’re not going to win the Memorial Cup yet. We’re building toward getting better every day and I think we’ve done that."
Spokane went against a couple of other trends on Sunday. The Chiefs have dominated their road games, with a record of 7-2-1-0, and compiled a mark of 8-2-2-0 against U.S. Division teams. Before Sunday's win, Spokane had been 4-5-2-0 at home and 1-4-0-0 against teams from the B.C. Division such as Kamloops.
The odds were stacked against the Chiefs after their busy weekend.
"We were playing a fresh team and we’re exhausted," Nachbaur said. "We got into the Tri-Cities at 4 in the morning (Saturday), played last night and didn’t get home until 2 in the morning (Sunday). We’re a tired team."
Kailer Yamamoto, who had the winning goal early in overtime, tipped his cap to Blazers goalie Connor Ingram.
"He had some great saves and we decided to keep putting pucks on net and hopefully we could beat him somehow."
Yamamoto was injured late in regulation.
"I was going down the wall on the power play, trying to beat the defenseman, and the ref got in the way and got me right in the stomach and I lost the wind," the Spokane native said.
