Marty Standish turned an early third-period mistake into a fatal one Saturday night in the Arena.
The Portland Winter Hawks 5-foot-7 right wing, known here as the young man whose two-handed slash broke the thumb of Spokane Chiefs captain Joel Boschman in the exhibition season, stole the puck deep in the Chiefs zone and turned it into the game-winning goal.
Standish's shot 54 seconds into the third period gave the Hawks their second one-goal win over the Chiefs in a week, this one 3-2 before 9,862.
It left the two clubs tied in the Western Hockey League West at 4-2.
The Chiefs dominated the first period, out-shooting the Hawks 15-7 despjite winding up a goal down.
Portland got on the board first on the power play. Brenden Morrow scored his fifth goal of the year on a redirect of Kevin Haupts' slap shot from the point.
Goaltender Brent Belecki did the rest, swatting aside 15 shots.
The Chiefs Marina Cisar lit it up the second period with his seventh and eighth goals of the young season. Ty Jones and Greg Leeb assisted on both.
It was Cisar on the breakaway for Spokane's first goal. The 19-year-old from Bratislava, Slovakia caught Belecki sliding left and beat him with the backhand to the goaltenders stick side.
Ondrej Vesely put the Hawks back on top, poking in the rebound of Andrej Podkonickys shot on the power play.
Cisar knotted it at 2 with 2:58 left in the second on a power-play goal set up Jones, who carried the puck in from the right wing, drew the defense off and played it to Cisar, who was alone on the doorstep.
After the Standish goal, Belecki and the veteran Winter Hawks defense took it from there. Belecki turned aside 36 of Spokane's 38 shots.
