Koper’s two goals lead Chiefs’ victory

There is nothing like kicking around a team that’s down.

Spokane’s Levko Koper scored two goals and Drayson Bowman scored a Gordie Howe hat trick with a goal, an assist and a fight as the Chiefs bullied the Prince George Cougars in a 5-1 Western Hockey League victory on Saturday night.

In front of an Arena crowd of 8,405, the Chiefs (17-3-1-2) won their fourth straight while handing the Cougars their eighth-straight loss. Spokane remains atop the U.S. Division with a three-point lead over the Tri-City Americans.

“We just had our foot on the gas,” said Koper, who earned the first star of the game. “We knew right from the beginning that we were going to take hold of the game.”

From the drop of the puck, it looked like the varsity beating up on the junior varsity.

All four lines rolled on offense, the defense limited the Cougars to 13 shots and the Chiefs shut down 6 of 6 Prince George power plays.

“We had legs,” Chiefs coach Bill Peters said. “I thought our guys had a lot of energy from the warm up and we carried it through.

“It was a mature effort.”

The Chiefs scored three times in the opening period, outshooting the Cougars 17-4.

Chris Bruton put Spokane on the board first with a power-play goal at 2 minutes, 57 seconds in the opening period, tapping in a Bowman shot from the perimeter.

Ty Wishart evened the score four minutes later, sneaking the Cougars (9-17-0-0) first shot of the game past Chiefs’ netminder Dustin Tokarski, who finished with 11 saves.

Bowman picked up the rebound on a Jared Spurgeon shot to give the Chiefs the lead again at 11:36 and Koper slotted a backhanded pass from Chris Langkow for his first goal with 14 seconds remaining in the period.

The two points increased Bowman’s scoring streak to nine games.

“He’s playing hard,” said Peters of his ace forward. “He’s shooting the puck well, he’s doing a lot of good things – not only offensively, but defensively he’s being responsible, he’s good on the penalty kill and he’s just a very intelligent player.”

Koper netted his final goal midway through the second before the Chiefs were put on the penalty kill for the final six minutes of the period.

“That kind of ruined the momentum we had built up to that point,” Peters said. “It was just one of those things. Obviously you’re happy with that number if you can give that up over 60 minutes, it just shows that our guys don’t cheat, and when you play the game properly you get rewarded and our guys know that.

Langkow, who finished with two assists in a career-high three-point night, netted the final goal of the game at 14:43 in the third as the Chiefs converted 2 of 4 power-play opportunities.

“I love playing with my linemates,” said Koper of sharing shifts with Tyler Johnson and Langkow. “The past month we’ve just been starting to click and it’s starting to show – everyone’s just playing their systems.”

With the win, the Chiefs completed the four-game sweep of the Cougars in the head-to-head series this season.

Spokane returns to the ice Wednesday night to take on Chilliwack for the final contest of a six-game homestand. The Bruins defeated the Chiefs 5-3 on Oct. 8.