Chiefs Fit To Be Tied In Arena Prince George Has Edge In Hustle, Holds Off Spokane For A 4-4 Draw

It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

The Spokane Chiefs, after six straight on the road, back in the Mallon Avenue Mansion against the 3-20 Prince George Cougars, well, Friday night with the Chiefs had rout stamped all over it.

Shows you what you can do with expectations on a November night in the Western Hockey League.

It’s the 3-20-1 Prince George Cougars today, after the Cougs played the Chiefs to a 4-4 draw in front of 6,759 at the Arena.

Chris Low’s goal at 13:28 of the third period tied it at 4, and although the Chiefs outshot Prince George 12-7 in the third period and 11-4 in 10 minutes of fruitless overtime, the bounces for a change went the Cougs’ way.

“We’re not the best team in the league,” said center Colin Cloutier, who started the season as team captain but gave it up in hopes of relieving some personal pressure, and shaking up the team, “But certainly we can be honest workers. We’re not going to win the Memorial Cup, but at least we’re working harder and having fun.”

It was Cloutier’s power-play goal at 10:45 of the first period that put Prince George up 2-1 after the Chiefs had taken a 1-0 lead. The Chiefs got more fireworks out of Greg Leeb, who scored his 17th and 18th goals of the year, and added an assist. Jason Podollan had a pair of goals to dig Spokane out of a 3-1 hole.

That’s right, the Chiefs trailed the Cougs 3-1 in their own rink in the second period, after Sheldon Souray, Cloutier and swift Peter Roed scored while the Cougars penalty-killers frustrated Spokane’s power play.

It was one of those rare nights when the Chiefs were outworked at home.

“I feel we definitely outworked Spokane tonight, and Tri-City last (Thursday) night (in a 3-1 upset win over the Americans),” Cloutier said. “But things are going to come slow for us. We’re used to losing, but we’ll get better, as long as we work hard.”

Both goaltenders, Spokane’s Aren Miller and PG’s Tyler Love, acquired three weeks ago from Moose Jaw, were busy.

“We’ve had some really poor efforts but we’ve also played great games and lost some tough ones. Dale (coach Marquette) told us if we want to win it’s up to us, he couldn’t change that. We’re responded to his coaching.”

Marquette started the season as an assistant coach under Doug Hobson. When Hobson stepped down two weeks ago, Marquette took the reins on an interim basis.

The Cougars, who broke a 16-game losing steak with their first win on the road at Tri-City 24 hours before, ended a five-game losing streak to the Chiefs dating back to last season.

“Give them credit,” Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said. “Their three lines worked real hard against what we had for three lines. We didn’t have as much jump as you like to see. In saying that, I thought we battled hard the last half of the game.”

The Chiefs played without John Cirjak (foot), who’ll also miss tonight’s game with Tri-City and WHL scoring champ Daymond Langkow at 7 in the Arena.

The injuries are beginning to show. The Chiefs are also without Joe Cardarelli and Jared Hope.

“We don’t have as much power as we did,” Babcock said. “But we dressed 20 guys tonight and anybody we have is good enough.”

Does a tie with the last-place club in the WHL West Division seem like a loss?

“I sure would have liked to have gotten two points tonight,” Babcock shrugged.

He settled for one for the tie, and at one point probably would have gladly taken it.

“Miller comes up with some big saves when we were down 3-1,” the coach said. “We could have gone 4-1 or even 5-1.”

Chiefs 4, Cougars 4

Prince George 2 1 1 0 - 4

Spokane 1 2 1 0 - 4

First period-1, Spo, Leeb 17 (Cervan), 5:31. 2, PG, Souray 5 (Hohenberger), 5:40. 3, PG, Cloutier 3 (Souray, Petrovicky), 10:45 (pp). Key penalties-Souray, PG, 7:07; Favaro, Spo, 10:26; Shockey, Spo, 11:27; Petrovicky, PG, 17:05.

Second period-4, PG, Roed 6 (Hohenberger, Walterson), 3:49. 5, Spo, Podollan 13 (Leeb, Hamilton), 10:28. 6, Spo, Leeb 18 (Hamilton, Shockey), 16:01 (pp). Key penalties-Hohenberger, PG, 1:06; Souray, PG, 4:11; Favaro, Spo, 11:03; Clouteir, PG, 15:16; Roed, PG, 16:29.

Third period-7, Spo, Podollan 15 (Schutz), 6:50. 8, PG, Low 3 (Van Horlick), 13:28. Key penalties-Haley, Spo, 3:52; Leeb, Spo, 9:58.

Overtime-None. Key penalties-None.

Power-play opp.-Prince George 1 of 5; Spokane 1 of 6. Saves-PG, Love 13-12-6-11-42. Spo, Miller 10-11-11-4-36. A-6,759.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo