Chiefs Fight Off Visitors Prince George Can’t Shake Cardarelli On Three Occasions

The Prince George Cougars had upset on their minds Wednesday night. Too bad for them they had Joe Cardarelli on their hands.

Three times Prince George - last in the West, winless in 11 games, somehow always tough against the Chiefs - pulled in front.

Three times Cardarelli erased all the good they did with game-tying goals in a 6-5 Spokane win before 5,080 in the Arena.

Cardarelli wiped out Cougars leads of 2-1, 3-2 and 5-4 with his 16th, 17th and 18th goals of the year, his third coming with 5:54 left in the Western Hockey League game.

Jay Bertsch and Darren Sinclair took it from there.

Bertsch’s slap shot from in front of the net between the faceoff circles sizzled by Cougars goaltender Chris Mason and bounced off the boards. Sinclair followed for the rebound, tapping it in for his 27th goal of the year with 4:51 remaining.

“It came off the boards with kind of a crazy bounce,” Sinclair said. “I didn’t have to adjust or change my momentum. I just kept going and got a stick on it.”

Jason Podollan and John Cirjak also scored for the Chiefs (36-13-3), who padded their lead in the West Division to four points - two games - over idle Kamloops and seven points over third-place Tri-City.

It was a win, the Chiefs’ fourth straight and 12th in their last 15. Other than that, and Cardarelli’s game-saving hat trick, coach Mike Babcock saw very little to like.

“(Cardarelli) strapped us on his back and got us going,” the coach said. “We were terrible. In one week we’ve been everything from incredible to brutal. That’s junior hockey. Every game these guys play, I get five years older.

“Watching our warmup tonight I knew we were in trouble.”

The Cougars jumped up 1-0 just 1:37 into the game on Matt Van Horlick’s eighth goal of the year. Van Horlick also put the Cougs ahead 5-4 late in the game, beating relief goaltender David Lemanowicz with 7:43 remaining.

That left it to Cardarelli and Sinclair to punch through late on Mason, who had 40 saves. After the game Cardarelli hopped on an exercise bike for a brisk 15-minute workout.

“Just trying to get in better shape,” he said. “I just got lucky tonight by shooting the puck. Sometimes I hold on a little too long. Put it on net. There can be a rebound. Anything can happen.”

Aren Miller, who started in goal for the Chiefs, was yanked at 9:28 of the third period after Chris Low scored his second goal to tie the game at 4. Lemanowicz gave up a quick goal - Van Horlick’s second, assisted by ex-Chief Trevor Shoaf - but rejected four shots and wound up with the win.

“We had to do something,” Babcock said. “We were brutal.”

The coach pointed to Cardarelli and Derek Schutz as standouts on a night when the Chiefs came down with a severe case of the blahs.

“We wanted to get off to a good start and bury them,” Sinclair said, “but it didn’t work out. They played hard and we don’t do that well against teams at the bottom.”

It wasn’t that long ago - 13 months - that the Chiefs were on the bottom, outworking everybody just to escape the cellar.

A lot has happened since then. Now the Chiefs, ranked third in the latest major junior hockey poll - their highest ranking ever - get away with ho-humming it once in a while.

Babcock cringes at that kind of talk.

Although his team is running in front of the pack and has a scheduling break the rest of the way - Spokane has four games left with the 12-38-2 Cougars - the coach says the only people using the F-word for First is the media.

“There’s no talk of celebration around here,” he said. “Not yet.”

Spokane played without star left wing Greg Leeb, who’s expected to miss 10 days with a sprained knee. It’s that kind of unforeseen misfortune that can disrupt a timetable.

On the plus side, captain Sean Gillam tied a club record by playing in his 264th game in Spokane. Gillam will set the record for games played as a Chief at Tri-City Friday night.

Chiefs 6, Cougars 5

Prince George 1 2 2 - 5

Spokane 1 2 3 - 6

First period - 1, PG, Van Horlick 8 (Walterson) 1:37; 2, Spo, Podollan 26 (Gillam, Sinclair) 10:46 (power play). Key penalties - Sinclair, Spo, 5:54; Van Horlick, PG, 7:24; Roed, PG, 9:28; Gillam, Spo, 18:32; Van Horlick, 19:35.

Second period - 3, PG, Low 11 (Shoaf, Mehalko) 1:00 (short-handed); 4, Cardarelli 16 (Cirjak, Bertsch) 3:56; 5, PG, Kiesman 2 (Catellier, Mehalko) 8:27; 4, Spo, Cardarelli 17 (Hrdina, Ference) 12:55. Key penalties - Favaro, Spo, 1:13; Podollan, Spo, 5:43.

Third period - 7, Spo, Cirjak 21 (Podollan) 7:04; 8, PG Low 12 (Mullen, Gendron) 9:28; 9, PG, VanHorlick (Shoaf, Mehalko) 12:17; 10, Spo, Cardarelli 18 (Hrdina, Boschman) 14:06; 11, Spo, Sinclair 27 (Bertsch, Leonov) 15:09. Key penalties - Boschman, Spo, 1:45; Voltera, PG, 16:26; Hrdina, Spo, 17:31.

Power plays opp.- Prince George 0-6. Spokane 1-4.Saves - Mason, PG,

12-18-10-40. Miller, Spo, 10-8-8-26; Lemanowicz, Spo, x-x-4-4.A-5,080

, DataTimes