Chiefs Charge Within Reach Spokane Back In Series After 5-0 Win

The star made a statement Friday night in the Arena.

If the Portland Winter Hawks are going to eliminate the Spokane Chiefs, they’re going to have to go through Jason Podollan to do it.

Podollan scored three goals and helped on a fourth in the Chiefs’ 5-0 stroll over Portland in Game 5 of the West Division quarterfinals.

The Chiefs sent the series back to Portland for Game 6 at 6 Sunday night in Memorial Coliseum. The Winter Hawks lead this best-of-seven series 3-2.

If Spokane forces a Game 7, the teams will be back in the Arena on Wednesday night.

Killing penalties as they did through their record-setting regular season - they snuffed all nine Portland power plays, including a 5-minute, score-at-will PP early in the third period - the Chiefs reaffirmed what most of the 9,211 in the Arena already knew.

Richard Zednik isn’t the only star in this series.

Brent Belecki isn’t the only goaltender.

Podollan on the attack and David Lemanowicz in net is a pretty impressive way to build a comeback. The Chiefs have won two straight after dropping the first three.

Lemanowicz had 34 saves and the shutout.

Belecki, under siege most of the night, made 42 stops.

The whole contingent of veterans which brought Spokane its first West Division championship played up to its 50-win form.

Darren Sinclair - sent off for a boarding major that gave Portland its third-period 5-minute power play - swarmed all over the Winter Hawks on the forecheck.

Sean Gillam had three assists. Dmitri Leonov and Jan Hrdina scored goals to contribute to the most one-sided game of the series. Adam Magarrell was a physical presence.

Portland’s Zednik, with Belecki the co-star of the first three games, was a non-factor.

“They picked up their game bigtime,” Portland coach Brent Peterson said. “They took away everything we tried to do. They outhit us. They outworked us. We weren’t able to elevate our game at all.”

Podollan, who has five goals in the last two games, completed the hat trick with a short-handed goal. He beat Belecki on the breakaway, sliding to his right and crashing into the corner boards as the puck was sliding by the diving goaltender.

“I just held it and held it and held it - I outwaited him that time,” Podollan said. “He can only stand up for so long. He had to go down, and fortunately there was enough angle left that I could get it home. It was a waiting game - I didn’t know what I was going to do - then I found a hole.”

Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said the Chiefs are “clawing away, not even talking about the series. We’re talking about 5 minutes at a time.”

Babcock promoted some bigger bodies - Derek Schutz, Randy Favaro and Mike Haley - to neutralize Portland’s forwards.

“We thought Portland had been handling us physically, so we tried to get bigger people playing more,” Babcock said. “We felt that we never had any forecheck in the first couple games of the series. Big difference is that Leonov, Sinclair and Gillam are starting to play. Guys had been pressing.”

Success in this series has been measured by sweat.

“We didn’t work as hard or dominate in the corners as we did in the first three games,” said Portland left wing Colin Forbes. “The first three games it was us taking the body to them. They didn’t have a chance to take the body to us. Tonight, we were sitting back. They were finishing their checks and that’s how Spokane likes to play. We were letting them play their game.”

Podollan broke open a scoreless game in the first minute of the first period.

The Winter Hawks, who dominated the first four shifts of the game, began to weaken after Podollan’s second goal, on a power-play at 11:29 into the second period.

Chiefs 5, Winter Hawks 0

Portland 0 0 0 - 0

Spokane 1 2 2 - 5

First period - 1, Spokane, Podollan 4 (Gillam), 19:01. Key penalties - Bertsch, Spok, 5:01; Boschman, Spok, 9:13; Strobl, Port, 10:24; Morrow, Port, 15:01; Hamilton, Spok, 16:41.

Second period - 2, Spokane, Podollan 5 (Schutz, Gillam), 11:29 (pp). 3, Spokane, Leonov 3 (Podollan, Hamilton), 17:33 (pp). Key penalties - Leeb, Spok, 5:26; Russell, Port, 9:26; Zednik, Port, 11:12; Boschman, Spok, 13:05; Sinclair, Spok, 13:20; Standish, Port, 16:32.

Third period - 4, Spokane, Podollan 6 (Cirjak, Gillam), 3:19 (sh). 5, Spokane, Hrdina 2 (Schutz, Magarrell), 8:28. Key penalties - Sinclair, Spok, boarding major-game misconduct, :52; Schutz, Spok, 12:35; Isbister, Port, 13:17; Schutz, Spok, 19:50.

Power-play opp. - Portland 0 of 9; Spokane 2-6. Saves - Portland, Belecki 18-12-11-41. Spokane, Lemanowicz 8-14-12-34. A - 9,211.

Tri-City 8, Kelowna 5

Kennewick

Daymond Langkow scored four goals as the Americans defeated the Rockets in WHL playoff action.

Tri-City scored three goals in 46 seconds early in the second period to go up 5-1 on the way to taking a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven first-round series.

The Americans also got goals from Craig Stahl, Grady Manson, Mark Hurley and Jaroslav Svejkovsky.

Kelowna scorers were Vaclav Varada, Luke Curtin, Brett McLean, Ryan Wade and Jason Deleurme.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: PORTLAND VS. SPOKANE Game 5: Chiefs 5, Hawks 0 Sunday: At Portland, Coliseum, 6 p.m. Wednesday: At Spokane, Arena, 7 p.m. (If necessary) Portland leads series 3-2