Bowman now all the way back with hat trick

Drayson Bowman is back, and he needn’t worry.

After Spokane’s leading scorer sustained a shoulder injury on Jan. 18 against the Seattle Thunderbirds, the Chiefs went 5-1 before Bowman returned to the ice on Friday night in Cranbrook, British Columbia, as Spokane opened its weekend home-and-home series with the Kootenay Ice.

The Chiefs gave up a two-goal lead in the third period and fell 3-2 in a shootout. Spokane coach Bill Peters called it Bowman’s rust game.

Nothing about Bowman’s game looked rusty on Saturday night, though, as the Chiefs sniper completed his third career hat trick and scored the lone shootout goal to lead Spokane to a 5-4 Western Hockey League victory at the Arena over the Ice.

“I was getting a little worried they didn’t need me,” Bowman joked. “It was really frustrating being in the press box (during the injury), but just watching games, even though it wasn’t a situation I wanted to be in, it helped a lot to watch and look for different things to do and I tried some of it out there tonight.

“It took me a game to get back going but I felt good out there (tonight).”

For the second straight night, the Chiefs (38-10-1-4) surrendered a 2-0 lead. This time they were able to stick it out and pick up two points to maintain a two-point lead over the Tri-City Americans for the Western Conference and U.S. Division lead. The win also gives the Chiefs a 3-1-0-1 record against Kootenay (30-18-4-2) in the five-game season series.

“I thought we worked hard,” said Peters. “We were a much more committed group than we were last night. Any way you look at it, we’re 6-0-0-1 in our last seven, right, so you’ve got to be pretty pleased with that – 13 out of a possible 14 points.

“It was a dog fight. They are a good hockey team and it’s nice to win the season series.”

After Jared Spurgeon put Spokane on the board 10 minutes and 40 seconds into the first, Bowman notched his first goal at 18:14.

The Ice stormed back in the second as Ben Maxwell scored a power-play goal at 1:24 and Andrew Bailey locked things up with his 24th goal of the season at 7:18.

“We can’t let that happen,” acknowledged Bowman. “Teams are getting tougher and they aren’t going to be giving up, just like we didn’t give up tonight, so we’ve got to make sure we bury teams when we’re up by two.”

Things got worse for Spokane before they got better.

Arnaud Jacquemet gave the Ice a 3-2 lead 59 seconds into the third and Bailey scored his second of the night at 8:52.

Then came Bowman – who netted a shot stick side past Kootenay goalie Kris Lazaruk before scoring his second top shelf goal of the night from the high slot at 17:36 to tie the game at 4.

“A little bit of rust last night,” said Peters of Bowman. “He did a great job for us tonight and his goals were big-time.”

The Chiefs continue the four-game homestand on Wednesday night when they take on the Everett Silvertips, a team they are 1-3 against this season.

“It’s huge,” said Chris Bruton of the Chiefs’ upcoming six games within the division. “Every point counts and we want to do things right this year – win the conference and win our division. With these division games, we’re never going to take them lightly.

“We’ll be ready every step of the way.”

Ice chips

Chiefs defenseman Brett Bartman had two assists, along with forwards Mitch Wahl and Ondrej Roman. … Chiefs goalie Dustin Tokarski finished with 30 saves.