New addition McCrae leads Chiefs past Blazers

Welcome to Spokane, Justin McCrae. Your timing couldn’t have been better.

After being traded to the Spokane Chiefs from the Saskatoon Blades on Monday, McCrae scored twice in his first game in a Chiefs’ sweater and Ondrej Roman added two goals and an assist as Spokane won its third straight Western Hockey League contest with a 6-2 victory over the Kamloops Blazers on Wednesday night at the Arena.

McCrae joined Drayson Bowman and Mitch Wahl on the top line in the absence of Chris Bruton. The Chiefs captain watched the game from the press box as he served the first game of a three-game suspension for a checking-from-behind major on Tri-City’s Shaun Vey last Saturday.

“It was an awesome experience,” said McCrae, who served as captain for the Blades this season before the trade. “I didn’t know what to expect coming in, but the guys have been awesome so far and it was a lot of fun playing out there.”

After Roman netted a penalty shot courtesy of a questionable interference call on Nick Ross, McCrae’s first goal gave Spokane (30-8-1-2) a 2-0 lead 14 minutes and 35 seconds into the first when Bowman fired in a shot from the high slot that was turned away by Kamloops goalie Justin Leclerc. McCrae, who was camping down low, quickly picked up the rebound and buried it into the lower left corner of the net.

He banged home his second of the night 34 seconds into the second on a carryover of the Chiefs’ first power play to give Spokane a 3-0 lead.

“I thought he was definitely nervous early, you could tell that,” said Chiefs coach Bill Peters. “System-wise, we’re going to have to work with him, we do things a little different than Saskatoon, but he’s a quality player and you saw that tonight.”

The Chiefs let the Blazers (19-22-1-1) creep back in the second half of the second period and pull within one after goals from Jimmy Bubnick and Brady Calla.

But David Rutherford set up Roman’s second goal of the night 10:12 into the third and scored a goal of his own at 13:03 to ensure the victory. Defenseman Jared Spurgeon scored Spokane’s final goal of the night.

“I thought it was three different games,” said Peters. “We got a 3-0 lead and that was game one, and in game two they came back, outworked us and got within one goal and then game three we held them to five shots in the third and stretched the lead and found the way to put it away.”

Chiefs netminder Dustin Tokarski, who remains the top goaltender in the league with a 1.91 goals-against average, turned away 26 shots – including a handful of point-blank shots in the first – to win his third straight start between the posts for Spokane.

The Chiefs, who are tied for the Western Conference lead at 63 points with the Vancouver Giants, hit the road on Friday to take on the Portland Winter Hawks before returning to the Arena ice on Saturday to play host to the rival Tri-City Americans.

The Americans fell 3-2 in a shootout to Everett on Wednesday and fell four points behind Spokane in the U.S. Division standings.

Notes

First-line center Mitch Wahl was one of 40 players – 14 from the WHL – who was selected to play in the CHL-NHL Top Prospects game in Edmonton, Alberta on Jan. 22-23. … The Chiefs remained second in the latest Canadian Hockey League top 10 rankings, released Wednesday. Spokane is the highest of four ranked WHL clubs. Vancouver is third, Calgary moved up to fourth, and Tri-City fell from fourth to seventh. … The WHL trade deadline is today at 2 p.m.