Chiefs hope they have answer
There was no sugarcoating the answer.
With television cameras in his face, Dustin Tokarski held his head high and offered a blunt response to the question: What happened?
“I screwed up playing the puck and they capitalized,” the Chiefs goalie said.
In greater detail, what happened was Tokarski went behind the net to play the puck in Tuesday’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Tri-City Americans in Western Hockey League playoff action at the Arena. Drew Hoff stole the puck, passed it out to Ams forward Kruise Reddick in the slot and Reddick scored the winning goal a little more than 2 minutes into the extra period.
“I gave Dustin a call later that night and, you know, he was upset, just like everyone else was disappointed with the loss,” said Chiefs coach Bill Peters. “But he cracked a joke about the fact that where he lives he has to cross a bridge and he made it over the bridge. The next day when we talked he was much better and now it feels like that was months ago already.
“He’s very responsible, very accountable, and we’re behind ‘Tik’ 100 percent. He answered the questions, and that’s part of growing as an athlete and part of trying to become a professional. He had a tough scenario and he had to answer a tough question and he handled it well.”
Tokarski has certainly more than handled himself well on the ice.
Through 14 playoff games this year – tied for the most played in the 2008 WHL playoffs with Calgary’s Dan Spence and Lethbridge’s Juha Metsola – the 18-year-old Chiefs netminder has a league-best goals-against average (1.32) and save percentage (.947). Tuesday’s loss was Tokarski’s fourth of the playoffs, two of which have been in overtime.
Only three goalies have posted shutouts in the playoffs – Tokarski, Metsola and Tri-City’s Chet Pickard. Two of Tokarski’s shutouts have been against the Americans.
“He’s excellent and he’ll be fine,” said Peters. “All I need is ‘Tik’ to be the same guy he has been all year. I don’t want anything less or anything more, I just want the same guy.”
The loss evened the best-of-7 Western Conference championship series 2-2, with Game 5 set for tonight at Kennewick’s Toyota Center. The series – now a best-of-3 – returns to the Arena on Monday night for Game 6, and if a seventh game is necessary, it will be played on Tuesday in Kennewick.
“It’s not surprising (that we are tied 2-2),” said Peters. “The only thing that is a little bit surprising is that you’ve seen two double-overtime games to start (the series) that were tied 0-0 after regulation, but the closeness of the series is not a surprise.”
It’s also not a position with which the Chiefs are unfamiliar. In their Western Conference semifinal series against Vancouver, the Giants beat the Chiefs in Game 4 to tie the series at 2-2 before Spokane won the next two games to advance to the West final.
“It’s no different than in Vancouver – we’re playing Game 5 on the road with a series tied 2-2,” said Peters. “Whoever wins that game puts the other team on the brink of elimination and it’s the exact same scenario in our series right now.”