Chiefs lose third straight at home
The season is down to one game for the Spokane Chiefs, a Monday game in Portland, where they're headed trailing the best-of-7 Western Hockey league playoff series 3-2 after three straight losses at home. The unedited game story iSteve Bergum filed s below.
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steveb@spokesman.com; (509) 475-9689
Finally, a chance to get back on the road and regroup.
That might not have been exactly what the Spokane Chiefs were thinking following Saturday night’s 4-3 home loss to
But they might want to take such twisted logic to heart in a hurry, or they’ll be bagging up the pucks on Tuesday.
“We’ve dug ourselves a pretty big hole,” admitted Chiefs center Mitch Wahl, who scored one of
The Winterhawks dominated this one throughout the first two periods by beating the Chiefs to the majority of loose pucks and doing most of the heavy hitting – or, in other words, wanting it more.
A lot more.
Riley Boychuk and Luke Walker scored first period goals for
But it was Johansen’s third-period goal that proved to be the game-winner, and it resulted from a crazy bounce after a
“I thought we started a little bit slow again tonight,” Chiefs coach Hardy Sauter said. “But a bad bounce off a faceoff and a bad bounce off the end wall cost us two goals. And in a series this close, that’s the difference in the hockey game.
“I was just really happy our guys fought hard to come back, and, hopefully, that will carry over into Game Six.”
It was defenseman Jared Cowen who scored
The Chiefs mounted several other impressive charges in the final minutes, but didn’t score again until Kyle Beach wristed in his fifth postseason goal with just 40 second remaining. And the Winterhawks were able to kill the clock from there.
Still, Sauter is hoping to build on the way his team finished.
“Despite the fact that we lose the game, our guys understand now how hard we have to play and the desperation level we need to be successful,” Sauter said. “I’ve never questioned the heart or desire of our guys, so I think, regardless, we’d have gone into Game Six playing hard.
“But this third period definitely gives us some momentum and something to build on. Obviously, we need a better start than we had in previous games, and, hopefully, this is a little bit of a helping hand to get that.”
The Chiefs found themselves in an early hole once again, spotting
The Winterhawks’ first goal came just 51 seconds in when Boychuk one-timed the puck past Reid following a faceoff in the right circle. And the second came on a scramble in front the