Chiefs Power Past Tri-City

Mike Babcock asked for more out of his power play Saturday night and the Spokane Chiefs gave it to him.

All night long.

Five times, the Chiefs went on the power play and three times they came back to the bench with goals, climaxed by Sean Gillam’s blast from the right point through a Jason Podollan screen. The goal - with 2:58 left - was the difference in a 4-3 win over the Tri-City Americans.

After nine meetings between these two teams, with only 19 games remaining in the regular season, the Chiefs and Americans are separated by three points in the Western Hockey League West Division standings. Spokane moved a game ahead (5-4) in its Highway 395 series with Tri-City and jumped back into a tie for the division lead with the idle Kamloops Blazers. The Chiefs meet Kamloops tonight in a game that will, for now, determine the best in the West.

The Chiefs also kept the Americans in third and clinched a playoff berth, although filling a spot in the playoffs never has been much in question for this 34-16-3 team.

Although the Chiefs had scored at least one power-play goal in their previous eight games, and their 22.2 percent success on the power play was the league’s seventh-best, before the game Babcock talked of getting more from it.

The Chiefs did their coach’s bidding - Podollan, Joe Cardarelli and Gillam scoring with the extra skater - in an entertaining game before a sellout of 10,528. The game ended with a special-teams flourish.

After Gillam scored it was up to Spokane’s penalty killers to snuff a 6-4 Tri-City manpower advantage inside the final minute. Chiefs defenseman Hugh Hamilton was sent off with 1:10 left.

With a faceoff in the Chiefs defensive zone and 7 seconds left, Tri-City coach Bob Loucks pulled goaltender Brian Boucher.

Spokane penalty killers smothered the strategy.

It was pressure from their own power play that was the talk of the Chiefs locker room.

“We’ve been too fancy, passing the puck instead of shooting it,” Gillam said. “Tonight we shot the puck and found a way to get rebounds, and buried them.”

Said Babcock: “We had them in trouble every single time we had the puck (on the power play). That’s the way I feel we have to be. We want to play physical on special teams and make sure that other teams can’t play that physical with us, because we’re going to bury them. We’ve lacked work ethic in that area, but we got a little bit more of that tonight.”

Boucher, who registered 43 saves, was livid after the game-winner, finally drawing 2 minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct.

“I didn’t see it, but I think he thought he got tripped from behind,” Gillam said. “I think there were two guys in front of the net and the shot might have gone off one of their sticks or one of ours on the way through. It just seemed to weave its way through and went right between his legs.

“It’s always good to come out and beat those guys,” Gillam added. “It’s a four-point swing in our favor.”

Dmitri Leonov scored out of a scramble in front of the net 58 seconds into the game.

The Americans tied it 2:21 later when Grady Manson scored on the power play, one of two T-C power-play goals in seven chances.

The Chiefs answered with a power-play goal of their own, Podollan redirecting Gillam’s drive from the right point at 18:22 of the first period. That sent the Chiefs into the first break ahead 2-1.But Mark Hurley and Mike Dubinsky struck 2:54 apart and it was tied at 3 after two periods. Tri-City out-shot the Chiefs 14-8 in the second 20-minute stretch The Chiefs regained control in the third period but couldn’t punch through on Boucher until Gillam launched his slapper from just inside the blue line.

Chiefs goaltender David Lemanowicz was busier than usual, sweeping aside 34 Tri-City shots, including a couple of breakaways.

Chiefs 4, Americans 3

Tri-City 1 2 0 - 3

Spokane 2 1 1 - 4

First period - 1, Spo, Leonov 25 (Bertsch, Sinclair) :58; 2, T-C, Manson 17 (Boikov, Langkow) 3:19 (power play); 3, Spo, Podollan (Gillam, Leonov) 18:22 (pp); Key penalties - Hrdina, Spo, 2:00; Podollan, Spo, 5:19; Svejkovsky, T-C, 11:56; Focht, T-C, 16:38;

Shockey, Spo, 18:49; Svejkovsky, T-C, 19:26.

Second period - 4, Spo, Cardarelli 14 (Hamilton, Cirjak) 1:06 (pp); 5, T-C, Ma. Hurley (Svejkovsky, Ascroft) 8:22 (pp); 6, T-C, Dubinsky 8 (Langkow) 11:16. Key penalties - Boschman, Spo, 6:50; Leeb, Spo, 17:23.

Third period - 7, Spo, Gillam 10 (Leonov, Sinclair) 17:02 (pp). Key penalties - Podollan, Spo, 8:20; Boikov, T-C, 15:03; Boucher, 17:02; Hamilton, Spo, 18:50.

Power plays opp.- T-C 2-7. Spokane 3-5.Saves - Boucher, T-C, 16-7-20-43. Lemanowicz, Spo, 10-12-12-34.A - 10,528.

, DataTimes