Chiefs denied by Portland

The wheels had come off the wagon. The game had imploded. Things couldn’t get much worse for the Spokane Chiefs.

Trailing by three goals early in the second period, coach Bill Peters pulled the goalie, called a timeout and challenged his team. Much to his chagrin, only some of the players responded.

Brandon Dubinsky had a goal and two assists as the Portland Winter Hawks downed the Spokane Chiefs, 6-3, in Western Hockey League play on Friday night at the Spokane Arena before 5,126.

Spokane (4-5-0-0, 8 points) lost its chance to grab a share of the U.S. Division lead with the loss. Portland and Everett, a loser on Friday to Seattle, are now tied at the top with 10 points.

Brian Woolger and Sasha Golin each added two assists for Portland and Jannik Hansen added a goal and an assist. Luke Shier made 37 saves in net for the winners.

And it all started out so promising for Spokane, which got the first goal of the game just 21 seconds into the opening period – by Adam Hobson.

Then Portland reeled off four unanswered goals and led 4-1 at the 6:35 mark of the second period when Peters had seen enough. He pulled starting goalie Jim Watt in favor of rookie Thomas Stehr, who ended up making 12 saves in his WHL debut.

Seth Compton got a goal just 15 seconds after the timeout, his second in two games, and Stehr made some stops to steady the ship. The Chiefs began to show some life.

Chiefs defenseman David Schultz would make it 4-3 on a wrister from the left circle on a beautiful feed from Chad Klassen, who stopped on dime at the right circle, spun around and whipped a pass over to Schultz.

But the Chiefs expended a lot of energy in the comeback and saw the game slip away in the third period, as Portland scored two goals in the first 5:38. The rest was purely academic.

At the end of the night, one statistic stood out on the score sheet: Portland power play 3 of 11, Spokane 0 of 8.

It all left Peters exasperated.

“I thought it started out all right, a goal on the first shift, then we gave it right back to them on a soft goal,” Peters said, “but it wasn’t the end of the world – and game on.”

But the Chiefs then committed a series of mental lapses – bad penalties, out-of-position defensemen – that led to several of the goals. Portland is a powerful team and punished each Spokane error.

“We didn’t have much hockey sense tonight,” Peters said. “We didn’t know what to do in the situation and reacted poorly and we paid a price.”

The bright spot was the play of Stehr, a 17-year-old, who looked calm and collected as he faced an early barrage of Portland shots. He was told after the fourth goal he was going in and wasn’t as composed as he appeared.

“I can’t say I wasn’t nervous,” Stehr said. “You know, big game, we’re down already, and I had to try and get the team back in it. It made it a lot easier when we scored early.”

Winter Hawks 6, Chiefs 3

First Period—1, Spo, Hobson 2 (Grabner) :21; 2, Por, Hansen 5 7:11; 3, Por, Bubnick 5 (Dubinsky) 7:58 (pp); 4, Por, Funk 2 (Hansen, Shier) 19:50 (pp).

Second Period—5, Por, Bailey 2 (Dubinsky, Cepek) 6:35 (pp); 6, Spo, Compton 2 (Stoesz) 6:50; 7, Spo, Schulz (Klassen, Ryan) 13:12.

Third Period— 8, Por, Hansen (Woolger, Golin) 3:26; 9, Por, Balan 2 (Woolger, Golin) 5:38.

Power-play Opp.—Portland 3 of 11; Spokane 0 of 8. Saves—Portland, Shier (W, 1-1) 16-10-11—37. Spokane, Watt (L, 4-5) 5-6-x-x—11; Stehr x-7-5—12. A—5,126.