Hot Koper, Chiefs set for opener
The Spokane Chiefs home opener - and third game of the Western Hockey League season - is Saturday but below we've got our unedited version of the advance story/Levko Koper feature that will run in tomorrow's paper. There is also this Tri-City Herald story on the Americans' weekend, which starts with a home game against Portland tonight.
The Chiefs could name their captain today - expected to be Jared Cowen, and it sounds like newcomer Kyle Beach has No. 21, which means 16-year old forward Mike Aviani has been reassigned.
Levko Koper’s four-goal outburst in the Spokane Chiefs’ two-game
series in
“I don’t know what happened there,” the second-year coach said, tongue in cheek, before adding, “Levko’s gone through four spans of time where he catches fire and he can score as good as anyone. We need those stretches to be longer and/or more often. We know he can score, it’s just a matter of him doing the work and getting to the spots he needs to in order to do that.”
Koper, who was fourth on the team last year with 23 goals and 36 assists, said his recent stint at the Atlanta Thrasher’s camp helped.
“I felt like I just had a little more time to do everything,” the seventh-round pick in the June NHL draft said. “At pro camp you have very little time to do anything; everything has to be done right away. Coming back here I felt more confident. There was more time to do everything, a little more space.”
Koper tries to keep the pace up when the Chiefs play their home opener against Tri-City and first-year coach Jim Hiller tonight at 7.
“It’s definitely not just another game,” he said. “First time you’re at home, finally everyone’s cheering for you. It’s going to be an exciting night, a lot of nerves out there. It’s something everybody looks forward to you.
“You have to get your first shift out of the way, just get the puck deep, get a couple of hits. Mostly keep it simple.”
Sauter likes the idea of opening with the Americans, who played
“I think it’s going to be a real good thing for us, especially since we don’t play on Friday,” he said. “People would probably think I’m full of it but you lose a little bit of rhythm without playing on a Friday night and so Saturday, with the extra emotion, that makes up for the lack of a game on Friday. … I think there are a lot of things that set this up to be a real interesting hockey game.”
Sauter said Koper’s scoring wasn’t the only positive from the PG trip.
“The things we’ve worked on were better from training camp until now,” he said “That shows the guys are paying attention and willing to learn. Our pursuit on the puck is real good. We’re potentially a very fast team.
“And, quiet honestly, I love the fact that we were down 1-0 for 2½ periods and I knew the guys weren’t throwing in the towel. They kept working and struggling to score that one goal to tie it and eventually they got it. Attitude is definitely huge.”
But, that one goal – though it was good for a point in the standings – also concerned Sauter.
“I think we addressed a little bit of that in the trade,” he said. “There’s still a long way to go as far as how we want to do things. The power play has to improve. You have to discourage teams from taking penalties by scoring on power plays.”
Picking up talented and controversial power forward Kyle Beach in a trade for two defensemen on Wednesday should help on offense, but so should Koper, who thinks he has a lot to prove despite his status as a NHL draftee.
“I was never drafted (out of bantams),” the
Koper had five points in 50 games as a rookie and then came back with 26 points (12 goals) as a 17-year old for the Memorial Cup champions.
“I had to work for everything I got,” he said. “I definitely never knew (getting drafted) was going to happen. I was just trying to play it year-by-year, getting better and whatever happened, happened. It was definitely a happy day, another step in the right direction.”