Blackwater leads Chiefs to victory

KELOWNA, British Columbia – Judd Blackwater and Tyler Johnson scored goals 15 second apart in the second period and the Spokane Chiefs went on to a 5-2 Western Hockey League victory Wednesday night over the Kelowna Rockets.

With the win, Spokane (44-14-1-5, 94 points) moved into a three-way tie with the Vancouver Giants (43-13-2-6) and the Tri-City Americans (45-14-2-2) for the top seed in the Western Conference playoff race. Tri-City defeated Edmonton 5-1 on Wednesday while Vancouver was idle.

Spokane and Vancouver each have eight games remaining in the regular season while Tri-City has nine.

Blackwater ended up with two goals and one assist. Ondrej Roman and Levko Koper each had two assists.

The Chiefs went ahead 2-0 on Blackwater and Johnson’s goals 15 seconds apart in the middle of the second period.

Kelowna cut the deficit in half with a goal 25 seconds into the third period, but Spokane answered with a power-play goal by David Rutherford at 3:30 of the final period.

Kelowna closed to within 3-2 on a Colin Long power-play goal at 8:27, but Spokane scored twice more – 20 seconds apart – to put the game away.

Justin McCrae got the first goal at 13:58 before Blackwater scored the final goal at 14:18.

Rutherford has four goals in the past five games. Blackwater has seven goals and six assists in his last 11 games.

Kelowna had a 35-31 shots-on-goal advantage, but Dustin Tokarski was up to the task with 33 saves in net for the Chiefs, including 16 in the final period.

Kristofer Westblom stopped 26 Spokane shots, including 14 in the first period.

The Chiefs have a week to savor their victory before hosting three games in four nights beginning Wednesday against Portland. After an off day on March 6, Spokane will host Tri-City and Chilliwack on March 7 and March 8, respectively.

Vancouver is at Prince George while Tri-City is at Red Deer tonight.