Chiefs prove bullheaded
KITCHENER, Ontario – First there was the good.
The Spokane Chiefs had taken a relatively quick three-goal lead in the first period Saturday and looked surprisingly rhythmic after a 10-day layoff since their last game.
Then there was the bad.
The Chiefs were on their heels and uncharacteristically silent on defense as they watched the Belleville Bulls erase that lead with three goals in the next 20 minutes of their tournament-opening game at the Memorial Cup at the Kitchener Auditorium.
Finally, Drayson Bowman greased in the ugly goal late in the third period that completed his hat trick and sent the game into overtime, where a smart play by all five players on the ice for Spokane was capped by a Levko Koper goal that gave the Chiefs a 5-4 victory in front of 6,624 fans.
“It was a tale of three games for us, really,” said Chiefs coach Bill Peters. “The way we came out was good, the way we played in the second I thought was bad and then we got that ugly goal to tie it up and found a way to get the puck on net for the game-winner.”
The way that it happened – 4 minutes and 46 seconds into the extra period – was the surprise happy ending.
The play started deep in Belleville’s zone with Tyler Johnson, who swept the puck to Trevor Glass in the right circle. Glass made a quick delivery to Jared Spurgeon at the right point. Spurgeon quickly centered the puck to Justin McCrae and McCrae spun and backhanded a short pass that allowed to Koper to bury it past Bulls goalie Mike Murphy from the low left slot.
“I think we deserved the win, for sure,” said Koper, noting the fact that the Chiefs outshot the Bulls 54-23. “We can’t let teams back in like that. The game we played at the start is what we need to stick to, that’s Chiefs hockey. We came out flying in the first.”
The up-tempo start, which was highlighted by the typical ferocious Spokane forecheck and a collective seven points for the top line of Bowman, Chiefs captain Chris Bruton and Mitch Wahl, even surprised the well-rested Chiefs a little.
“Our start was our team game to a T,” said Bruton, who assisted on both of Bowman’s first-period goals. “I think we were even amazed at how good of a start it was after having 10 days off the ice.”
Bruton blocked a Belleville pass at the Chiefs’ defensive blue line and sent the puck through the neutral zone to Bowman, who beat Bulls defenseman Shawn Lalonde, went forehand to backhand and flicked the puck top shelf over Murphy’s left shoulder midway through the first period.
Lalonde made a lazy pass in his zone 2 minutes later that Bowman picked up at the top of the left circle and found Mitch Wahl camping near the right post. Wahl finished the play with a top-shelf goal and added an assist at 17:05 when Bowman buried the rebound of a Bruton shot to add to the Chiefs momentum.
That was quickly erased when Belleville’s Bryan Cameron scored 2:27 into the second.
Glass took a hooking penalty 12:31 into the period and Shawn Matthias eventually squeezed the puck into an inch of open space over the left shoulder of Chiefs goalie Dustin Tokarski to make it a one-goal game. Cory Tanaka, who finished with two goals and an assist for the Bulls, tied the game with just less than a minute remaining in the second.
“I thought we worked a little harder in the second,” said Belleville coach George Burnett, whose Bulls were plagued by turnovers in the opening period. “We created some of our own (turnovers) on the attack and got back into the hockey game, but that was big part of the game tonight. I think we had 11 or 12 we counted in the first period, and that’s too many in an entire hockey game.”
Tanaka gave the Bulls their first lead of the game 7:35 into the third, before Bowman knotted the game at 17:04.
“It was good to produce in that type of setting,” said Bowman. “As a line, we were putting the puck on the net and getting chances, but we weren’t our best line defensively either. (As a team), we haven’t played that bad of defense all year. It was real disappointing, we feel pretty fortunate to (get the win).”
The Chiefs play the host Kitchener Rangers (1-0) at 1:30 p.m. PDT today, which will leave only one team unbeaten in the tournament.