Hrdina Leaves Kamloops In A Daze His Goal With 18 Seconds Left Gives Chiefs 4-3 Opening Win In West Finals

Jan Hrdina’s no-look shot with 18.5 seconds left from the side of the net turned delirium to agony Saturday night in Riverside Coliseum.

Hrdina’s game-winner broke a brief tie and gave the Spokane Chiefs a 4-3 win in Game 1 of the Western Hockey League West Division finals before 5,622 stunned Kamloops Blazers fans.

The sellout crowd had come to life with 32 seconds remaining when the Blazers Bob Maudie won a draw with Hrdina in the Chiefs zone. The puck came out to Jarome Iginla, whose shot got through the pads of Chiefs goaltender David Lemanowicz.

The goal seemed to cap a third-period Blazers flurry and was still being announced and applauded when Hrdina broke through at the other end.

“Dmitri Leonov kind of chipped it in,” Hrdina said. “I caught it with my glove, put it down and just got around the defense. I was lucky.”

The puck appeared to glance off Randy Petruk’s skate.

“I wanted to keep it deep because with 18 seconds to go I didn’t want to give them the opportunity to break out,” Hrdina said. “I didn’t even look. I just shot it to the net and it went in.”

So the Chiefs got what they came for Saturday night, a win in the opener of this best-of-7 series. With Game 2 here tonight at 6, the pressure has landed squarely on the Blazers, who have to go to Spokane for games on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the latter if necessary.

The Blazers had the tie and a date with overtime at home but it lasted only 14 seconds.

“This is only my second year here but we’re not a team that does that,” Blazers center Shawn McNeil said. “This is the first time I’ve seen us give up a goal like that. We got too comfortable.”

Chiefs goaltender David Lemanowicz turned back 13 third-period shots and might have had a 14th if not for a mixup.

Kamloops coach Ed Dempsey pulled Petruk for the extra attacker in the final minute.

“We kind of screwed it up, the 6-on-5,” Hrdina said. “I made a mistake so I wanted to do something.”

The ending was bizarre but the result was all too familiar to the Kamloops faithful who watched the Chiefs rebound from a 1-0 deficit to win again in Riverside Coliseum, a once formidable building that has become as cozy to the Chiefs as a second home.

The Chiefs haven’t lost in the Coliseum since Oct. 8, 1994.

With goals by Leonov, Jason Podollan, Sean Gillam and Hrdina, the Chiefs pushed their unbeaten streak against the two-time defending Memorial Cup champion to 13 straight, covering two seasons.

And the best may be yet to come.

“We think we’ll be better (tonight), because after all that time off we didn’t have our legs tonight,” Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said. “We were sluggish early.”

Sluggish, and not overly bright.

Spokane paid for two early penalties, the Blazers getting power play goals from Maudie and Aaron Keller.

The Blazers turned a Spokane bench minor for too many players on the ice into Maudie’s goal at 5:02 to go up 1-0.

The Chiefs answered with a late first-period goal, Leonov drilling a low slap shot off the post to Petruk’s stick side to tie it at 17:53 of the first period.

Podollan made it 2-1 in favor of Spokane inside the first minute of the second period with his eighth goal of the playoffs. Podollan, going one-on-one with Petruk, made the goalie make the first move and fired the puck top shelf 56 seconds into the second period.

Keller’s 60-foot slap shot with the Blazers again on the power play at 3:04, tied it at 2-2.

Gillam’s first goal of the playoffs - a slap shot that came in low from the right circle - gave Spokane a 3-2 lead after two periods.

Kamloops outshot Spokane 31-27, and had a 14-8 shot advantage in the third period.

“I thought we did a lot of good things but in that last 10 minutes we were playing going backwards,” Babcock said. “We can’t play this team going backwards. They took over in the last 10 minutes not necessarily because they were better, but because we were worse.

“I thought Joe Cardarelli, John Cirjak and Derek Schutz were excellent and (Kris) Graf was great.”

Graf, who saw action in only three games in the Portland series, played on the second line with Podollan and Hrdina.

Spokane 4, Kamloops 3

Spokane 1 2 1 - 4

Kamloops 1 1 1 - 3

First period - 1, Kamloops, Maudie 5 (Iginla, Lukowich), 5:02 (pp). 2, Spokane, Leonov 5 (Sinclair), 17:53. Key penalties - Podollan, Spo, 2:12; Spokane bench (too many men, served by Schutz), 4:22.

Second period - 3, Spokane, Podollan 8 (Hrdina, Hamilton), :56. 4, Kamloops, Keller 4 (Lukowich, Iginla), 3:04 (pp). 5, Spokane, Gillam 1 (Leonov, Whitfield), 9:10 (pp). Key penalties - Magarrell, Spo, 1:30; Holland, Kam, 3:49; Skrlac, Kam, 8:51; Favaro, Spo, 9:29.

Third period - 6, Kamloops, Iginla 11 (Holland, Maudie), 19:28. 7, Spokane, Hrdina 3 (Leonov, Gillam), 19:41. Key penalties - Hamilton, Spo, 10:53.

Power-play opp. - Spokane 1 of 2; Kamloops 2 of 5.Saves - Spokane, Lemanowicz 7-8-13-28. Kamloops, Petruk 8-8-7-23.A - 5,622.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: WEST DIVISION FINALS Saturday: Spokane 4, Kamloops 3 Today: Spokane at Kamloops, 6 p.m. Tuesday: Kamloops at Spokane, 7 p.m. Wednesday: Kamloops at Spokane, 7 p.m.