Americans Give Chiefs A Beating Tri-City Rides Early Lead To 6-3 Victory In Game Featuring Third-Period Brawl

In a series renowned for its unpredictability, this one raised the Tri-City-Spokane weirdness to the next level.

Playing without two top goal-scorers, Jan Hrdina and Greg Leeb, playing on the road in front of a sellout crowd against a contender that almost had to win, the Spokane Chiefs could have expected the 6-3 Friday night thrashing they got from the Tri-City Americans.

But then the expected never plays much of a role in a Spokane-Tri-City hockey game.

Ten players - six from Tri-City, five from Spokane - were ejected in a wild third period.

“You never know what to expect,” said Tri-City’s Boyd Olson, who buried the Chiefs with three goals - his first career hat trick - and an assist. “It can be finesse or all brawls.”

Or it can be generous doses of both.

Olson came through with much of the finesse. He scored the game’s first goal, dragging Spokane’s Trent Whitfield into the net with him as he flipped the puck by goalie David Lemanowicz at 8:20 of the first period.

“I didn’t see that one go in until I was in the net with Lemanowicz,” Olson said. “I just tried to get a shot on net and draw the penalty and it went in.”

The crusher came 3:39 later with Olson skating on the Tri-City penalty-killing unit. Down by only one and on the power play, the Chiefs were breaking out of their defensive zone with an eye on evening the score when Olson picked off the puck, stepped around Whitfield and fed Shawn Gervais on the left side of a 2-on-1 break.

Gervais turned that into a short-handed goal that put the Chiefs in a 2-0 hole.

“‘They were on the power play with Whitfield, a forward, playing defense,” Olson said. “He’s not used to it. He gave it over to me, I just put it under his stick and went around him. Gervais was driving for the far post and put it in.”

The Tri-City lead climbed to 3-0 - Mike Dubinsky drilling a slap shot from the top of the right faceoff circle past Lemanowicz 49 seconds into the second period - before Spokane mounted a response.

Chiefs coach Mike Babcock ushered in backup goalie Aren Miller after the Dubinsky goal and the Chiefs closed to 3-1 on Hugh Hamilton’s blast from the point of the power play at 1:59 of the second.

Olson got that one back at 8:43, scoring unassisted on the wraparound, beating Miller on the short side, and it was 4-1 Americans.

With the third period came the fireworks. When Tri-City’s Jaroslav Svejkovsky scored his 44th goal of the year 2:07 into the period it seemed to take Spokane out of the game at 5-1.

Seemed, meaning nothing in these games.

Twenty-one seconds later, Tri-City’s Mike Hurley charged Miller in goal, senselessly with his team cruise controlling. Miller came up fighting. A line brawl ensued. Tri-City goaltender Brian Boucher skated the length of the rink to pile on. They and the other combatants were eventually invited to an early shower.

Ushered out at 2:28 of the period were Spokane’s Miller, Hamilton, Whitfield, Joel Boschman and Randy Favaro.

Tossed from the Americans’ side were Boucher, Dylan Gyori, Byron Briske, Tom Zavediuk and Chris Anderson. Tri-City’s Svjekovsky was thrown out later, at 17:50, after drawing a major for checking from behind.

Miller’s departure brought Lemanowicz back in goal for Spokane and Aaron Baker replaced Boucher.

The Chiefs took quick advantage, Jason Podollan and Chris Lane scoring 1:10 apart to close the spread to 5-3. Lane’s goal was the rookie’s first.

The threat lasted another 9:22 until Olson ended it at 13:50 with his third goal of the game and ninth of the season, assisted by Craig Stahl and Gervais. That’s a checking line that’s just beginning to come together as an offensive weapon.

Gervais came in from Seattle in a mid-January trade.

“Our line has been struggling,” Olson said. “We just got together, since Gervais came over. Things are just starting to click for us.”

Hrdina, out with a groin pull, was missed, but Babcock made no excuses for his club’s first loss in February. It was the end of Spokane’s four-game win streak heading into Sunday night’s game at Kamloops.

“This year there hasn’t been a whole lot of that,” Babcock said of the brawl. “It didn’t have a whole lot of bearing on the contest.”

Americans 6, Chiefs 3

Spokane 0 1 2 - 3

Tri-City 2 2 2 - 6

First period-1, Tri-City, Olson 7 (Focht), 8:10. 2, Tri-City, Gervais 15 (Olson, Smith), 11:49 (sh). Key penalties-McCallum, TC, 1:30; Lemanowicz, Spo, served by Haley, 3:47; Cirjak, Spo, 4:35; Hamilton, Spo, 9:44; Boikov, TC, 10:50; Boschman, Spo, 13:41; Gillam, Spo, 17:06.

Second period-3, Tri-City, Dubinsky 9 (Langkow, Manson), :49. 4, Spokane, Hamilton 7 (Podollan, Sinclair), 1:59 (pp). 5, Tri-City, Olson 8, 8:43. Key penalties-Focht, TC, 1:52; Focht, TC, 15:07; Podollan, Spo, 15:31; Gillam, Spo, 17:40.

Third period-6, Tri-City, Svejkovsky 44 (Focht), 2:07. 7, Spokane, Podollan 27 (Gillam), 3:18. 8, Spokane, Lane 1 (Sinclair, Leonov), 4:28 (pp). 9, Tri-City, Olson 9 (Stahl, Gervais), 13:50. Key penalties- Mi.Hurley, TC, charging major, 2:28; Schutz, Spo, 2:28; Spokane bench, too many men, served by Bertsch, 6:54; Leonov, Spo, 10:53; Ascroft, TC, 17:55; Svejkovsky, TC, checking from behind major, 17:55.

Power-play opp.-Spokane 2 of 7; Tri-City 0 of 9.Saves- Spokane, Lemanowicz 11-0-6-17, Miller x-7-0-7. Tri-City, Boucher 9-7-0-16, Baker x-x-9-9.A-5,960.

, DataTimes