Kelowna zips past Spokane in Chiefs’ final home game of regular season

A night after dominating rival Tri-City 6-1, the Chiefs got slammed by the same score Saturday night by Kelowna in Spokane’s final home game of the regular season.

The Chiefs’ Dominic Zwerger put Spokane on the board in the first period with a short-handed goal. The Rockets (46-18-4-0, 96 points) answered in about 40 seconds and then put on an offensive show to win going away.

“We were doing all right until the last 30 seconds of the first period when we gave up the second goal. That was a huge momentum buster,” Chiefs head coach Don Nachbaur said. “We never really recovered.”

The Chiefs (31-28-5-4, 71 points) started the game with energy, but that quickly changed. Some 12 minutes into the game, Spokane got a power play and ended up playing defense most of those 2 minutes.

The Chiefs failed to get a shot on goal, while the Rockets got two good short-handed scoring opportunities.

“To beat Kelowna, you’ve got to bring you best effort,” Nachbaur said. “Tonight, for sure, was not our best.”

But the Chiefs drew first blood.

With 4:19 left in the first period and during a Kelowna power play, Kailer Yamamoto raced toward the Rockets’ net and his shot deflected free to a waiting Zwerger, who scored the short-handed goal to give Spokane a 1-0 lead.

Less than 40 seconds later during the same power play, Tomas Soustal scored on Spokane goalie Tyson Verhelst to tie the game.

“We get the 1-0 lead, and then we let them get on right back,” Zwerger said. “I think we then kind of collapsed on the defensive side.”

The teams continued to play evenly until Kelowna’s Dillon Dube broke free and went top shelf on Verhelst to give the Rockets a 2-1 lead.

The night got worse for Spokane some 3 1/2 minutes into the second period.

During a Kelowna attack, the Rockets’ Cal Foote raked the puck past Verhelst and the long night got much longer as the Chiefs found themselves down 3-1.

With 11:24 left in the period during a Kelowna power play, Rourke Chartier fired a rocket from near the blue line that whizzed past Verhelst to make it 4-1 Rockets.

“We won an emotional game Friday night. I’m concerned that we don’t follow it up,” Nachbaur said.

The crowd finally got energized a couple of minutes later when Kole Lind slammed Kailer Yamamoto into the wall so hard it knocked off his helmet. The Chiefs’ Tyson Helgensen dropped gloves with Lind and then dropped Lind.

The Chiefs thought they had a goal with 2:45 left when Zwerger scored, but a Rocket had knocked Preston Kopeck into Kelowna’s goalie, who knocked the net loose, and the referees waved off the goal.

“I don’t know what happened there,” Zwerger said. “The goalie pushed off the net and I still shot it in the net.”

The Rockets poured salt in the wound in the third period, with goals by Tyson Baillie and Rodney Southam to make the score 6-1.

The Chiefs hit the road for the final four games of the season. The Tri-City Americans won Saturday and sit four points behind the Chiefs for the final playoff spot.

“That last game of the season at Tri-City may be the biggest of the year,” Nachbaur said. “We need to put some wins together on the road.”

Zwerger, who leads the team with 27 goals, said the Chiefs need to respond Tuesday against Seattle.

“We just couldn’t get the job done tonight,” Zwerger said. “We’ve got to get this game out of our heads as quickly as possible and move on.”