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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

It all comes down to this


Spokane's Jace Coyle holds off Portland's Nick Dietrich as they chase a loose puck in the first period at the Arena Friday night. 
 (Rajah Bose / The Spokesman-Review)

It’s almost as if the Spokane Chiefs and Tri-City Americans took a look at their schedules at the beginning of the Western Hockey League season and decided they would renew the intensity of their long-standing rivalry by making the final meeting of the regular season winner-take-all.

Chiefs coach Bill Peters looked at the possibility two months ago.

“We’ve talked about it … that game 71 was going to be a big game,” said Peters. “It’s not a surprise that it’s here now and for all marbles in essence.”

First, though, both teams had business to take care of Friday.

Drayson Bowman scored two goals and the playoff-bound Chiefs closed out the home portion of the regular season with a 6-3 victory over the Portland Winter Hawks (10-57-2-1) in front of an Arena crowd of 10,259 for their 50th win of the season, tying the 1995-96 Chiefs for most wins in a single season.

The Americans (51-16-2-2) also picked up a victory, 4-2 over the Kelowna Rockets, as Spokane (50-14-1-5) and Tri-City remained deadlocked atop the U.S. Division and Western Conference standings with 106 points. It’s all on the line when they meet for the 12th and final time of the regular season tonight in Kennewick.

There are a couple of scenarios that could play out, but Peters summed it up nicely.

“If somebody can win that game outright in regulation it ends it,” he said. “We control our own destiny, if we go in there and play as well as we can and get the two points then everything looks after itself.”

An overtime or shootout loss and a win Sunday (in Portland) and Spokane would have the edge. The B.C. Division champion Vancouver Giants are officially out of the race for the top seed in the West. The Giants defeated Prince George 4-2 Friday to improve to 47-15-2-6 with 102 points and will be the second playoff seed out of the conference.

Several Chiefs had multiple-point games against Portland.

Levko Koper had a goal and an assist and Tyler Johnson finished with two assists. Center Ondrej Roman finished with a goal and two assists as his line – which included right-winger David Rutherford and left-winger Judd Blackwater – led the offense. Rutherford added a goal and an assist and Blackwater two helpers.

Overage forwards Rutherford, Blackwater and captain Chris Bruton were honored in a pregame ceremony before their final regular-season game at the Arena.

“I think me and (Bruton) and Judd were all pretty emotional,” said Rutherford. “If you think about it coming to an end, it’s a lot.”

Of course, they still have the playoffs to look forward to, as Bruton pointed out.

“It wasn’t that (emotional) for me,” said Bruton. “I expect to play a lot more home games come playoff time. This isn’t a goodbye for me yet. I hope we make a long run and when it’s all said and done it will definitely be an emotional time, but there’s a lot of hockey to be played right now so it’s not really in my mind.”

The Chiefs’ effort Friday certainly wasn’t their most polished of the season.

The Winter Hawks took a 1-0 lead after Travis Bobbee netted a power-play goal four minutes and 14 seconds into the first. Spokane came out of the period with a 2-1 lead, though, after Bowman scored his 41st goal of the season at 9:51, also on a power play, and Koper poked in a rebound of a Johnson shot at 12 minutes.

“I thought we were OK once we got the game going,” said Peters. “We were a little sluggish out the gates, took two penalties early and they jumped all over us with shots. They’ve got some decent players and capitalized on their second-power play opportunity, but from that point on we took care of things.”

Rutherford opened a three-goal second period for Spokane 29 seconds into the middle stanza and Bowman found the net again at 3:26. Justin McCrae cranked one home at 11:26, before Portland’s Colin Reddin and Luke Walker scored to bring the deficit back to 5-3.

Roman scored the lone goal in the third period at 5:50 as the Chiefs finished 4 of 8 on the power play.

Chiefs’ goalie Kevin Armstrong finished with 22 saves in improving his record to 20-5-1-2.

Ice chips

Spokane is the top-ranked team in the league on the power play, converting 22.1 percent of the time when skating with an advantage. … The Kitchener Rangers (53-10-1-2) of the Ontario Hockey League, who will play host to this year’s Memorial Cup, are first in the Canadian Hockey League top-10 rankings in which Spokane moved up to second this week and Tri-City is fourth. … In 36 games at the Arena, the Chiefs averaged 6,557 fans a night in drawing a total attendance of 236,056 this season.