Score First One To Chiefs Tri-City Falls In Game One Of Playoffs

The Tri-City Americans rallied furiously in the third period Friday night, but their delayed inspiration was too little, too late on a big night for Spokane’s unsung and unlucky.

A pair of goals by Jay Bertsch and Hugh Hamilton’s five points staked the Chiefs to a big lead and, eventually, a 9-5 win in Game One of the Western Hockey League playoffs.

Goals by Greg Leeb, Jeremy Stasiuk, Darren Sinclair and Dimitri Leonov contributed to what seemed like a Spokane rout by the 13:49 mark of the second period, when Stasiuk’s shot rebounded into the slot and Sinclair buried it to put the Chiefs up 6-1.

The lead would grow to 7-1 before WHL scoring champion Daymond Langkow ignited a three-goal Tri-City rally in a span of 2:26 of the third period that closed it to 7-4.

Goals by Spokane’s John Shockey and Joe Cardarelli ended the suspense.

The win in the first of Spokane’s four games in this round-robin playoff was extremely sweet for Bertsch and Hamilton, two of the more prominent members of the Chiefs’ tough-luck brigade.

Bertsch missed 15 games early in the year with recurring headaches later diagnosed as trauma-induced migraines that are now controlled by medication.

A hip pointer late in the season knocked him out for another two weeks.

Hamilton broke his right wrist in October and missed a dozen games.

Back to full strength, they are part of the reason the Chiefs are 22-8-3 since Jan. 8 and have taken four of their last six with the slumping Americans.

“I just got off the phone with my mom in Leask, Saskatoon,” Hamilton said. “We’ve waited all year for this. She was so excited she had to turn the game off after I had a goal and three assists. All the neighbors were calling.”

Pam Hamilton doesn’t have many neighbors in Leask (pop. 500) but apparently most were tuned to the radio for Hamilton’s one-goal, four-assist night.

The Chiefs shut off Tri-City’s rally after coach Mike Babcock summoned his team for a timeout at 9:31 of the third, after Tri-City’s Ryan Brown scored to make it 7-4.

“I just told them that, if they knew before the game that they’d be three goals up with 10 minutes left, they’d be relaxed and playing hard,” Babcock said. “We just got off task for about 5 minutes - started cheating (for position) and weren’t doing what we had been doing.

“The guys regrouped and got back into the game.”

Babcock said even though the Chiefs could not afford to lose the playoff opener at home, “We’re a long way from being done here.

“We were fortunate tonight in that we got them on an off-night.”

Spokane’s Game Two is tonight at 7 in Tacoma. The Chiefs go to Tri-City on Thursday night and are back in the Coliseum Friday night with Tacoma to complete the round-robin.

One of the three - Spokane, Tri-City or Tacoma - will be eliminated. The other two go on to the West Division semifinals.

Langkow had 26 points - 14 goals and 12 assists - in 14 regular season games with Spokane and was no easier to handle in the first go of the playoffs.

“We got halfway back,” said Langkow, who had two goals and an assist. “It gives us something to go on in our next game (Tuesday at home with Tacoma).”

Spokane piled it on early, jumping ahead 1-0 on Hamilton’s drive from the top of the right faceoff circle with the Chiefs on the power play.

The Americans’ power play unit tied it at 1-1, Langkow scoring after Spokane had snuffed three previous T-C power-play opportunities.

The 1-1 tie lasted less than a minute. Bertsch, on a breakaway, took a great feed from John Cirjak to beat T-C goaltender Brian Boucher at 16:32 of the first.

Chiefs 9, Americans 5

Tri-City 1 0 4 - 5 Spokane 3 3 3 - 9

First period-1, Spokane, Hamilton 1 (Shockey, Cardarelli), 14:28 (pp). 2, Tri-City, Langkow 1 (Cabana, Boikov), 15:40 (pp). 3, Spokane, Bertsch 1 (Cirjak, Hamilton), 16:32. 4, Spokane, Leeb 1, 16:55. Key penalties-Brown, TC, 2:23; Stasiuk, Spo, 4:23; Gillam, Spo, 6:56; Hamilton, Spo, 8:56; Komarniski, TC, 12:31; Sawyer, Spo, 14:36.

Second period-5, Spokane, Stasiuk 1 (Leeb), 9:35 (pp). 6, Spokane, Sinclair 1 (Stasiuk, Hamilton), 13:49. 7, Spokane, Bertsch 2 (Hamilton, Cirjak), 14:12. Key penalties-Thompson, TC, 6:46; Thompson, TC, 8:56; Marsh, TC, 10:28.

Third period-8, Spokane, Leonov 1 (Shockey), 2:33 (sh). 9, Tri-City, Langkow 2 (Ryan, Cabana), 7:05. 10, Tri-City, Ryan 1 (Langkow, Marsh), 8:28 (pp). 11, Tri-City, Brown 1 (Ryan), 9:31. 12, Spokane, Shockey 1 (Leeb, Whitfield), 17:05. 13, Spokane, Cardarelli 1 (Cirjak, Hamilton), 18:24. 14, Tri-City, Olson 1 (Hurley, Kriz), 18:55. Key penalties-Magarell, Spo, 1:02; Hamilton, Spo, 3:15; Langkow, TC, 4:49; Gillam, Spo, 7:33; Podollan, Spo, 10:15; Marsh, TC, 17:56.

Power-play opp.-Tri-City 3 of 9. Spokane 3 of 7.Saves- Tri-City, Boucher 11-10-12-33, Trofimenkoff x-3-x-3. Spokane, Daniel 14-9-18-41.A-4,502.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with story: On deck WHL playoffs: The Chiefs travel to Tacoma for a round-robin game tonight at 7:05