Injuries, bad breaks, poor execution – whatever the reason, the Spokane Chiefs are in a horrible funk. The Chiefs’ losing streak reached a season-high seven on Friday night as Tyler Soy had a hand in every goal and Coleman Vollrath stopped all 29 shots during the Victoria Royals’ 3-0 win at the Arena. Spokane’s last seven-game losing streak came during the 2006-07 season.
Spokane Chiefs head coach Don Nachbaur is only exaggerating slightly when he says half of his lineup is sitting in the stands. The injury-riddled Chiefs lost their season-high sixth consecutive game Sunday with their second 2-0 setback in less than 24 hours at the Arena.
Evan Sarthou didn’t figure to get so many starts in the net for the Tri-City Americans this season. The young goaltender certainly didn’t figure to register four shutouts in nine days.
Soon after learning he’d been traded to the Spokane Chiefs, Nick Charif called an old hockey buddy to get the lowdown on his new team. Although Cole Wedman’s time with the Chiefs had ended seven months before, he gave a glowing report to the 19-year-old Charif.
Sam Reinhart never intended to return to the Western Hockey League, but playing again with the Kootenay Ice provided one big benefit. Reinhart’s goal at Saskatoon on Saturday night gave him a franchise-record 287 career points, one more than former Ice player Jarret Stoll of the Los Angeles Kings.
Many players changed teams before the Western Hockey League’s trade deadline last Saturday, but nobody had a more interesting journey than defenseman Brycen Martin. The Swift Current Broncos traded the 18-year-old Martin, the second overall pick in the 2011 WHL Bantam Draft, to Kamloops on Jan. 6 for defenseman Joshua Connolly.
Many players changed teams before the Western Hockey League’s trade deadline last Saturday, but nobody had a more interesting journey than defenseman Brycen Martin.
The Spokane Chiefs bid adieu to their home ice at the Arena following Saturday's 5-2 victory over Kamloops. Their next four games will be on the road. Read story
The Spokane Chiefs looked up at the scoreboard with about 9 minutes left in Saturday’s game and saw that they had been held to 13 shots on goal. Ordinarily, that would be cause for alarm, but the Chiefs led the Kamloops Blazers 5-2 at the time.
The Spokane Chiefs appear primed to keep pace with Portland for the rest of the Western Hockey League season because the Winterhawks are likely to give up a lot of goals. Read story
These aren’t the same Portland Winterhawks, but they seem to like the challenge of getting back to their accustomed position. Paul Bittner’s third career hat trick and Oliver Bjorkstrand’s four-point night during a 5-3 Western Hockey League win over the Spokane Chiefs on Friday night at the Arena proved that the Winterhawks still have offensive fireworks.
