Standish Makes Chiefs Stand Down Winter Hawks Break Away To 3-2 Win After Spokane Lets Puck Get Away
The record will show that the Spokane Chiefs lost another one-goal game to the Portland Winter Hawks at home Saturday night, this time 3-2.
What they really lost by was a step.
That was the difference between the Chiefs clearing the puck out of the danger zone and Portland’s Marty Standish recovering it, and drilling home the game-winner.
The key play developed from a faceoff 54 seconds into the third period with the Western Hockey League game tied at 2.
“No one really won the draw, said the 5-foot-7 Standish, who until Saturday night was best known locally as the player whose slash last month broke the thumb of Chiefs captain Joel Boschman. “The puck was kind of in Pod’s (Andrej Podkonicky’s) skates. I just snuck behind the defenseman and yelled to Andrej. He passed it to my backhand.
“I brought it around, tried to outwait the goaltender - and did - and snuck it in on the short side.
Standish was alone, sliding through the slot from right to left with Chiefs goaltender Aren Miller at his mercy.
Chiefs defenseman Mark Forth was trying to chip the puck up the wall when he lost sight of Standish.
“Our guy (Forth) jumps to push it ahead, it doesn’t happen, so now he (Standish) is free on the offensive side, Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said. “When you’re a step ahead in close quarters like that, you’re home free.”
The Chiefs should have moved the puck ahead off the faceoff, Babcock added, “but I felt bad for Mark Forth. He tried to do everything right but the puck bounced the wrong way for him.
Standish, by the way, said he never meant to injure Boschman in the Sept. 14 exhibition game here.
“It was an accident, he said. What isn’t an accident is how well the Winter Hawks play in Spokane.
“The last two years, it seems like our coach (Brent Peterson) tries to get us pumped up in here, because he knows Spokane has a good team with a great crowd, said Standish who, with an assist to go with his goal, was voted the game’s first star. “We’ve come ready to play and things have gone our way in this building.”
It was the Chiefs, though, who dominated the first period of a fast-paced game, outshooting the Hawks 15-7 but winding up a goal down after 20 minutes.
Portland got on the board first on the power play. Brenden Morrow scored his fifth of the year on a redirect of Kevin Haupt’s slap shot from the point.
Goaltender Brent Belecki did the rest, swatting aside 15 shots. Marian Cisar of the Chiefs lit it up the second period with his seventh and eighth goals of the young season. Ty Jones and Greg Leeb assisted on both.
It was Cisar on the breakaway for Spokane’s first goal. The 19-year-old from Bratislava, Slovakia, caught Belecki sliding left and beat him with the backhand to the goaltender’s stick side.
Ondrej Vesely put the Hawks back on top, poking in the rebound of Podkonicky’s shot with the Hawks on the power play.
Cisar knotted it at 2 with 2:58 left in the second period on a power-play goal set up by Jones, who carried the puck in from the right wing, drew the defense off and played it to Cisar, who was alone at the doorstep.
After the Standish goal, Belecki and the Winter Hawks’ firm defensive posture took it from there. Belecki turned aside 36 of Spokane’s 38 shots.
The Chiefs will be in Kamloops Monday for the traditional Chiefs-Blazers Canadian Thanksgiving game. Perry Johnson will sit that one out as Boschman rejoins the trio of 20-year-olds who will dress for the Chiefs.
, DataTimes MEMO: Changed from the Idaho edition