Chiefs Get Look At Future Cardarelli, Whitfield Make Difference In Win Over Seattle

The Spokane Chiefs got a rare victory and a glimpse of their future Sunday night in the Coliseum.

Joe Cardarelli tied the Western Hockey League game and Trent Whitfield hammered home the game-winner to rally the Chiefs past the road-weary Seattle Thunderbirds, 6-4.

Whitfield is a rookie, Cardarelli barely a veteran. Both 17-year-olds had two goals that pulled the Chiefs into a tie with Prince George for the final playoff spot out of the WHL West, and allowed them to overcome a couple of monumental mistakes.

Mistake No. 1 gave Seattle a 2-0 lead with 36 seconds left in the first period. With the Chiefs on a power play, Bryan McCabe and Hugh Hamilton collided in front of the Spokane net, the puck squirted loose and Seattle’s Chris Schmidt swooped in to flick it past Chiefs goaltender Jarrod Daniel.

The fluke goal stunned a Coliseum crowd of 3,289 that has learned to expect the worst.

“That was a pretty scary first period,” Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said. “That (a collision that costs a goal) should never happen. The back end on your breakout on the power play is the same on every team in the league - two guys swing in the corner and one guy steps out from behind the net (McCabe in this instance).

“I don’t know what happened but they ran into each other.”

Mistake No. 2 - a fight between familiar combatants Kevin Sawyer of Spokane and Seattle’s David Jesiolowski - left the T-Birds with a 5-minute, score-at-will power play.

Seattle used it to take a 3-2 lead in the second period.

But unlike so many sour evenings of the past, the Chiefs found a way to atone.

A ragged 13th in the WHL in power-play goals, Spokane had five power-play chances and scored on three, including three straight in the second and third periods.

Seattle lost for only the fourth time since Nov. 12.

Cardarelli extended his scoring streak to five games with a threepoint night, Dimitri Leonov hit his first goal since returning from an Oct. 1 broken ankle and McCabe flipped the insurance into Seattle’s empty net as time expired.

“We’ve been in a big slump,” Cardarelli said. “The second goal I scored (to make it 4-4) came after a drop pass from Randy Favaro. I kind of lost control but it rolled in.”

The Chiefs (12-28-1) put an end to a four-game skid with Portland due in Wednesday night.

The Chiefs lost Sawyer for the night - and likely for some time beyond that - after he separated Jesiolowski from his helmet and used the headgear as a club.

With the fight seemingly over, ending as all of them do, decidedly in Sawyer’s favor, the Chiefs assistant captain swung the helmet before officials could separate the two. He faces a suspension when the incident is reviewed this week.

It left the Chiefs short-handed for 5 minutes and the game tied at 2. Seattle’s Regan Mueller scored to make it 3-2 at 12:06 of the second, with 3:40 remaining in the extended power play.

But playing their third game in as many nights and without Chris Herperger, the T-Birds (21-19-2) ran out of chances.

“We didn’t do much with that power play after the (Mueller) goal,” Seattle coach Don Nachbaur said. “That was the turning point. We’ve logged a lot of miles between games (in Kamloops and Tri-City) had didn’t have the legs to come back.”

Nachbaur was not happy with the Sawyer-Jesiolowski incident.

“Kevin Sawyer will enjoy his next visit to Seattle,” Nachbaur said. “That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”

Chiefs 6, Thunderbirds 4

Seattle 2 1 1 - 4

Spokane 0 3 3 - 6

First period - 1, Seattle, Manning 15 (Divisek, Quint) 12:32 (pp). 2, Seattle, Schmidt 15 19:26 (sh). Key penalties - Gillam (Spo) 1:06; Wells (Sea) 1:30; Gillam (Spo) 8:55; Hamilton (Spo) 11:24; Burt (Sea) 17:58.

Second period - 3, Spokane, Cardarelli 15 (Bertsch, Hamilton) 7:03. 4, Spokane, Leonov 2 (Cardarelli, Sinclair) 9:51 (pp). 5, Seattle, Mueller 18 (Wells, Hrdina) 12:06 (pp). 6, Spokane, Whitfield 3 (McCabe, Leeb) 16:19 (pp). Key penalties - Hrdina (Sea) 1:52; Favaro (Spo) 4:14; Ferone (Sea) 8:23; Podollan (Spo) 9:10; Jesiolowski (Sea) fighting major, Sawyer (Spo) fighting major-match major 11:00; Burt (Sea) 15:34.

Third period - 7, Seattle, Hrdina 23 (Wells, Ferone) 4:51. 8, Spokane, Cardarelli 16 (Favaro, Hamilton) 6:12. 9, Spokane, Whitfield 4 (Gillam, McCabe) 9:53 (pp). 10, Spokane, McCabe 10 19:59. Key penalties - Gervais (Sea) 9:41.

Saves - Seattle, Bonner 11-15-13-39. Spokane, Daniel 15-13-10-38.

A - 3,289.