Spokane Vs. Tri-City, Tacoma

Time: Tonight in the Tri-City Coliseum at 7, Friday night with Tacoma in the Spokane Coliseum at 7.

Records: Spokane (1-1 in the playoffs), Tri-City (2-1).

Radio: KGA-AM (1510) 6 p.m. Chiefs Talk with Craig West. Mike Babcock Show 6:20, pre-game 6:50.

Key players

Spokane: RW Jay Bertsch (3 goals, 0 assists), D Hugh Hamilton (1, 4) GK Jarrod Daniel (4.5 goals-against), RW Jason Podollan (0 goals, 0 assists), D Sean Gillam (0, 0), RW John Cirjak (0, 3), D John Shockey (1, 3), LW Greg Leeb (1, 2), RW Jeremy Stasiuk (1, 2), C Darren Sinclair (1, 0).

Tri-City: C Daymond Langkow, LW Terry Ryan, C Brent Ascroft, C Boyd Olson, LW Chad Cabana, GK Brian Boucher, C Mark Hurley, D Alexandre Boikov, D Pavel Kriz.

At a glance: The Americans got off to a horrible start in this round-robin but two games later are the first team in this playoff pool to come within a game of moving on to the WHL West Division semi-finals. Tri-City jumped on Tacoma Tuesday night on the road with Hurley, Ascroft, Olson and Langkow notching goals in a 4-2 win that knocked Tacoma’s record back to 1-2. That means that as big as this game is, the bigger one for the Chiefs is Friday night at home with Tacoma.

The Chiefs can lose tonight and still move into the next round by beating Tacoma in Spokane on Friday night.

“This is a huge game for Tri-City,” Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said. “It’s big for us as well in that if we win we at least assure ourselves of another game with Tri-City.” That would be the tiebreaker that would have to be played on Saturday night, but that’s speculation muddying up an already confusing picture.

If the Chiefs lose on the road and win at home they won’t have to worry about it.

Babcock said he’s not concerned that his scoring leaders Podollan and Gillam have been blanked in two playoff games. “If they keep plugging - doing what they’ve been doing - they’ll score,” he said.